


A Monster By Any Other Name: Timestamps

by Brosedshield, LaviniaLavender, whereupon



Series: Freak Camp: A Monster By Any Other Name [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 60,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviniaLavender/pseuds/LaviniaLavender, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereupon/pseuds/whereupon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are timestamps for A Monster By Any Other Name, aka Freak Camp (coauthored by Brosedshield and Lavinia Lavender).  The timestamps are written by the two of us, as well as by our beta, whereupon. The events in these timestamps may not always match up the timeline of the regular Chaptered story, but if we didn't think the characterization and tone/message/heart resonated with that greater work, they would not be here.</p><p>Each story (one per chapter) will name the author and when it falls in the larger story, as well as any other relevant notes about it.  Hope you enjoy these extra stories in the Freak Camp 'verse, as well as a closer look at our individual writing styles!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leadership and Respect: by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Prologue, but before Part One: A family moment between Samuel and Jonah Campbell.

Samuel had never liked his office, had never seen much purpose to it, like he had never really been fond of paperwork. Yes, it was good to keep track of freaks taken down, of the early warning signs that pointed to demonic activity, a vampire nests, or increased numbers of angry ghosts, but the real work of hunting, the day to day hands-on applicable work came from shotguns, not keyboards.  
  
The office was nice, and spacious, but it wasn’t like it actually kept him from being interrupted. Family and other hunters and Washington penny-pinchers were in and out at all hours, and Samuel had come to accept that. He was important, he had chosen to do this job so that Mary’s death would do the best most good for the country, in the greater fight against the supernatural, and when hunters needed to find him, he wanted to be available.  
  
It would be nice if they learned to knock, but he didn’t expect that. Hunters were in general brash, defiant, and if they had found his door locked they would have assumed he wasn’t there or tried to knock the thing down.  
  
It came as a surprise, then, to hear a soft knock on the sturdy, iron-enforced wood.  
  
Samuel paused, hand moving instinctively to the gun in the open second drawer. “Come in,” he said at last, hating the way his voice quavered. _You’re becoming an old man, Samuel._  
  
He relaxed completely when one of his nephews, Jonah, stuck his head through the door, smiling his chilly, cautious smile. “Am I interrupting, Uncle Samuel?”   
  
Samuel smiled back. “Of course not. What can I do for you, son?”  
  
Jonah was young—mid to late twenties, Samuel thought, but then again he couldn’t keep track of the entire Campbell brood anymore, nor did he want to, Deanna had always been the one who remembered birthdays and things—but he moved like a tiger and had clever eyes. Even entering supposedly safe territory, his eyes flickered everywhere, checking for possible lines of attack and retreat, lingering thoughtfully on the door that led to a small, useless room that had probably been intended as a walk-in closet, an emergency armory or a safe, and was never completely finished.  
  
When Jonah’s eyes met his again, Samuel had no doubt that he had both retreat and assault planned out in his head, should Samuel become a threat.  
  
 _Boy’s too smart,_ Samuel thought fondly.  
  
“Nothing in particular, sir.” Jonah took the chair in front of the desk after glancing slightly at Samuel for permission. Samuel nodded, and the young man relaxed back, boneless and lethal “We were just dropping off a djinn and I like to pay my respects, absorb some wisdom, shoot the breeze. I’d offer to buy you a beer, but you look busy and,” he checked his watch, “we’re heading out in about two hours, after my team has…enjoyed themselves, to another Bigfoot sighting in Montana that might be something more interesting.”  
  
Samuel smiled. “I’d certainly—“  
  
The door slammed open, and about half a dozen people tumbled in Jonah jumped and visibly reached for his gun—Samuel’s hand got to his gun before Jonah, only because Samuel had his positioned for extremely easy access—but it the group was just a handful of younger Campbells.  
  
“Uncle Sam!” Joshua shouted. “Dude, what does it take to get a fucking signature around here?” Hey, Jonah.” He tossed his waiver form—crumpled, like he’d stored it in his back pocket all day—on the table and then spun around indignantly when one of the other hunters—a woman, but not a Campbell, so Samuel didn’t remember her name—pinched his ass. “Hey!”  
  
Jonah settled back in his chair, and Samuel turned his attention to the form.  
  
Flamethrower request form, filled out in pencil. He could barely read the request description—most hunters didn’t bother with the forms, just built their own weapons from scratch or bought them in the underground market, and then they didn’t have to go through all this shit—and the thing was badly stained by something. Samuel optimistically assumed beer.  
  
“What are you hunting?” he asked, checking a few boxes that the kid had forgotten.  
  
“Rugaru,” Joshua said, grinning. “Feral one in Maine. We’re gonna torch the fucker.”  
  
 _No shit._ Samuel signed the form and handed it back. “Don’t get yourself killed.”  
  
“Sure ‘nuff, Nuncle. Hippiya!” Joshua slapped the other hunter’s ass and barely managed to dodge the fist she aimed at his crotch, so it landed instead on his thigh He limped out of the office just barely ahead of her while she shouted threats at his head.   
  
“Josh, that fucking  _hurt_ , what have I told you about—“  
  
When the door of the office clicked closed, the silence seemed very large. Samuel let out a deep breath, and only then glanced at Jonah. It didn’t exactly surprise him to see the frown on Jonah’s face, his stony eyes, but the _intensity_  gave him a little jolt to the stomach, more than enough to wipe out the remainder of his own irritation.  
  
“Problem, Jonah?” Samuel asked.  
  
Jonah glanced back at him. “You shouldn’t let them treat you like that, sir. They should show you respect.”  
  
Samuel raised his eyebrows. “They do what they need to do and don’t need interference from me to do it.” When, if anything, Jonah’s expression darkened, he sighed. “What exactly did you have in mind? How would you go about earning respect, son?”  
  
“I’m sure they  _respect_  you, sir,” Jonah said. “As an impractical, founder-of-the-ASC, signer-of-equipment-request-forms, font-of-information way. What I feel you should receive, sir, is  _practical_  respect.”  
  
“My question stands.” Samuel shook off the conversation and grabbed another form—damn interrogation request forms, probably his least favorite; he knew at least half of them were just an excuse to experiment with control techniques, indulge in petty or misdirected revenge, or just plain power trip.  
  
Jonah shrugged. “The same way you get anyone to show proper respect, sir. You identify what they want—or need, often the same thing—and make it clear that you have the power to provide or remove it. Most hunters use the same basic idea when interrogating a witness without flashing the ASC badge. You assume the trappings of authority most likely to give the civvies what they want—the badge most likely to offer resolution and reassurance—and then civvies fall all over themselves to get you what you need.”  
  
“Intriguing thought,” Samuel replied, “but what makes you think I have that kind of power over a bunch of hunters? We are a reckless, chaotic bunch, after all.”  
  
Jonah fixed him with a steely look that was just shy of impudent—and that only because it was cold and intimidating enough not to have a trace of disrespect. That was probably the look he used to stare down monsters and control older, cockier hunters when he was the only Campbell in a deportation squad. “You’re the Director of the ASC, sir,” he said. “I’m sure you have power over anything a hunter may want or need.”  
  
Not for the first time, Samuel felt one of those slight chills—like he had before from demon threats and the presence of the restless dead—from Jonah’s matter-of-fact statements.  
  
"Sounds like you’re after my job." Samuel tried to make a joke, but it came out flat. It had always been hard to joke with Jonah, unless he was putting on a show for a witness. He could persuade civilians but he rarely bothered to charm hunters when he could get by with cold practicality. Maybe he figured they could see through the ruse.  
  
Samuel expected his poor attempt at humor to earn him a dry twist of the lips—at most. He hadn’t expected one of Jonah’s rare, real smiles, the ones that made him look like a bright-eyed, cheerful young man instead of a flat-eyed killer. "I hope to earn that honor eventually, sir."  
  
"It’s not a fun job, son," Samuel said. "It’s not wine, women, and song."  
  
Jonah’s smile dipped down to its usual tight amusement. "I don’t drink while I’m working, sir, and I’ve never assumed it was a joy. The paperwork alone would give anyone a headache. But it’s not just the title, sir—"  
  
"Or the power," Samuel added.  
  
Jonah inclined his head in acknowledgement, though Samuel wasn’t positive it was acceptance. "Or the power. It’s about the mission, sir. I have ideas, plans, and ambitions about curtailing the supernatural threat—and perhaps even winning the greater war. But as a basic hunter, I’m just a voice crying out in the wilderness, without the power to really implement a single change that could save lives. Hunter lives as well as civilian."  
  
"Your parents," Samuel said heavily. "We’ve all lost people, son, we all hate the freaks. Just because you feel you have more drive and more anger than someone else isn’t reason enough to want the Director job."  
  
Jonah thought for a second. Samuel could see thoughts assembling in his head, ideas that he had probably harbored for a long time but which he was only now slotting into place with the actual words to communicate.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong, sir,” Jonah said. “I hate the freaks. They’ve killed so many hunters—my parents, your daughter, numberless others through our family and the history of humanity—but on a certain level, that’s just what freaks do. They kill hunters. It’s the essential reason we have this mission, sir, and it’s not that I’m angry precisely, and it’s hard to quite accept the word passion.” He shrugged. “They’re vermin, doing what vermin are programmed to do by evolution or God or whatever you want to believe in. I no more rage against supernaturals than I have apoplectic fits about the mosquitoes that carry malaria in Africa, or rabid dogs.”  
  
“A stance like that won’t earn you many friends, Jonah,” Samuel said.  
  
“I assure you, Uncle Samuel, what I lack in passion I make up for in resolve. You can slap at a mosquito, or you can poison and drain its breeding grounds. You can try to hit a dog with a stick, or blow its head off with a shotgun. I’ve never been particularly concerned with making friends, as long as I have the family and the satisfaction of a job well done.”  
  
Samuel couldn’t decide if Jonah’s stance was laudable or disturbing. His hand was shaking over the forms, and he wasn’t quite sure why. There was no threat in the room. Jonah might be a strange young man with too-calm eyes, but there was no demon inside him, no threat. The young man believed in the cause, even if that belief took a form different from anything Samuel understood.  
  
And from everything Samuel had heard, Jonah was a damn fine hunter and a decent leader, with more kills than some hunters twice his age. Better yet, he had the brains to back up his ambition. If some of the stories that Samuel had heard from deportation parties were true, Jonah was well on his way to being not just a good but an exemplary hunter, with unusual methods that often resulted in less loss of civilian and hunter life.  
  
“I don’t plan to retire any time soon, Jonah,” Samuel said, moving on to the execution authorization forms. “But I’ll put in a good word for you with the family and the President.”  
  
Jonah smiled, another real one that lit up his whole face. “Thank you, Uncle,” he said. “That means a lot, coming from you. I’ll make you proud, continue your battle.”  
  
 _And maybe win the war._  
  
Jonah didn’t say it, but Samuel heard it beneath the words, the eagerness and determination in the young man’s whole being.  
  
 _You just might, son. You just might._  
  
But all he said was, “I’m already proud, Jonah. That’s all I could ask."


	2. Not the Journey, but the Destination: by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Chapters 10 and 11 of Part One: Dean needed a minimum of two signatures from “respected hunters” to get Sam out. Bobby called Jim.

Bobby met Jim Murphy in the yard when he drove up in his battered Honda. Like every single time, Jim’s handshake was firm, his smile easy but reserved, and he had a hint of dark circles threading through the smile lines around his eyes.  
  
Given the way they’d met, Bobby admired the way the pastor could shake his hand loose and easy, like he didn’t expect an attack. A man could say a lot of shit about Jim (and Winchester had, at any opportunity when his kid couldn’t hear), but no one could ever say he lacked guts.  
  
“Christo,” Bobby said by way of greeting.  
  
Jim grinned—relief and laughter dropping five years from his face—and the handshake tightened. “And God bless you, you old goat.” He grabbed a small suitcase from the car and slammed the door, rust flaking off from the impact. “Would have come sooner, but I had a funeral. Little fire-eating old lady, half the parish showed up.“  
  
“Paperwork’ll wait a day, I’m just glad you got here.”  
  
“Me too.” Jim mimed a kick at his car, and never dropped the smile. “Thought this old rust bucket would never survive the trip. Thing likes to die on me every five miles, which is about how far I have to drive to get from one point to another in Blue Lake, but getting to your place is quite a different thing. My parishioners could include car repair services in my salary and I’d be the highest paid man in the county.”  
  
“I’ll have the kid take a look at it before you leave. Needs to burn off some energy anyway.”  
  
Pastor Jim’s eyebrows went up. “That so?”  
  
“Yeah. Been going half-crazy on me while we got paperwork shit together.”  
  
Jim’s expression darkened, and he reached for Bobby’s arm. Bobby let him. He’d passed the demon test, which was, between them, the most important, and everything else he’d been doing seemed like authentic Jim. They’d go through silver and holy water and the half-dozen other tests before the paperwork got signed, but for now Bobby was willing to bet that the man before him was his friend, and not some freak masquerading as someone it wasn’t.  
  
“Singer, tell me honestly, you think I should do this?”  
  
“Not gonna tell you your mind,” Bobby snapped. “But Dean’s on the level. He’s passed every test I got, and a couple I made up, I ain’t seen signs of mind control, or any kind of mental mess other than being really worried about the kid he wants to take out, and I’ve even had him down in my panic room once or twice. And…yeah, he’s just jumpy. And it ain’t just about the kid. Could you…don’t mention his old man, okay? Kid’s going through a rough patch.”  
  
Jim nodded and , let go of Bobby’s arm, as they took the stairs to the porch. “Okay.”  
  
Dean looked up from the couch when they walked in, hand moving automatically to the shotgun at his feet, eyes sharp and a little panicked. Bobby kept thinking that maybe he’d relax one of these days, stop jumping at shadows, but he still hadn’t. Maybe the kid should go on some hunts, blow off steam. The only other option Bobby could imagine was him hurting himself.  
  
“Who’re you?” Dean said, hand hovering over the weapon.  
  
“Pastor James Murphy,” Jim said. He set his bag on the floor and neither offered his hand nor looked offended that Dean was inches from picking up a shotgun. ”Most folks call me Pastor Jim, but I answer to pretty much any permutation. And you are?”  
  
Dean frowned. “Dean Winchester.”  
  
Jim smiled in the way that had reassured more-terrified people than Dean Winchester. “Nice to meet you, Dean. Singer here tells me you want to get a  _person_  out of Freak Camp.”  
  
Bobby heard the emphasis and straightened, not sure which way Jim was expecting the kid to jump, not sure what he meant. Dean felt it too, snapping to attention, the shotgun ignored beneath his feet.  
  
“Yes, sir,” he said, fiercely, angrily, as though someone had denied it.  
  
But Jim just gave a sharp nod. “Good. Then show me these papers you want me to sign.”


	3. Dean's Photograph, by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elaboration on an object mentioned in Part Two, Chapter Five.

Dean Winchester has one photograph in his home.  
  
He kept it in his duffle for years, carried with him wherever he went, then later stuck in the glovebox of the Impala where he knew that it would be forever carried with the one possession he would always come back for.  
  
When he got the apartment—for Sam, everything for Sam—he bought a frame for it, even though he didn’t really know the size.  
  
The frame is too big, and the photo is crumbled, and sometimes Dean wishes that he hadn’t put it in that frame at all, just stuffed it in the top drawer of his dresser the way he has ever since he took it the photo out of the trash. Dad was drunk and clearing out all his “excess baggage” but this was something Dean wouldn’t let go, even though it wasn’t really his.  
  
The photograph shows Mary and John Winchester grinning at the camera. She’s wearing a scandalously short, off-white wedding dress and he’s in his Marine dress uniform. They looked young, defiant, happy, and the background places them in a wedding chapel in Vegas.  
  
Dean treasures it because it show his parents happy, even if it’s without him.


	4. Sing Me to Sleep, by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, Chapter 12: One morning in the first week of Sam's nightmares.

The morning was gray, overcast, with a mist hanging heavy like the clouds didn’t have the balls to just rain and be done with it. Not the most promising start to the day, but Dean couldn’t deny it fit how worn out he felt after sitting up half the night with Sam after his latest nightmare, rubbing his back futilely in an attempt to convince his body nothing was drawing tight around his throat, then holding him to his chest as the kid sobbed like he had nothing, no comfort nor hope in the world to rescue him. In those dark hours, Dean felt choked too by the fear he’d gotten too fucking acquainted with lately—that he’d been too late, too fucking late for his promise to be any good, that the papers he’d signed had been a sick joke because they left Sam’s mind or soul or something locked up inside; that Sam was alive, out of FREACS and far from Nevada too, but far too broken, far too wrecked to ever believe it or learn how to be happy instead of afraid, and Dean didn’t have the faintest clue how to teach him. No book in the world could help with that.  
  
Under the fluorescent lights of the motel breakfast room, the situation didn’t look much more promising. Sam was huddled in his chair with his shoulder pressed to the wall, head bent over a small Styrofoam bowl of frosted flakes that Dean had gotten for him, because this had not seemed like a morning where leaving Sam alone with even the choices of a continental breakfast would be remotely humane. Dean didn’t think he could handle more tears. Or, shit, a panic attack.  
  
So Dean had helped him get the cereal and milk and spoon, but now it looked like Sam had forgotten the point of cereal ( _don’t be too surprised, Winchester, he only learned he could eat it a month ago_ ), and Dean wondered if maybe they could go back and spend the rest of the day in bed. Maybe that would throw off the bastards wiring Sam’s subconscious, so they’d get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.  
  
But food was nearly as important as shut-eye, so first Dean had to find a way to remind Sam how to lift the spoon instead of just watching it fill with milk and sink.  
  
He cleared his throat. “It’s probably good and soggy now, if that’s how you like it.”  
  
Sam twitched slightly (different than a flinch, not so bad). The spoon lifted halfway out of the bowl, then dropped again. Great. Dean’s words had been wholly useless, because they’d failed to register as any kind of direction, as an  _order_ (even though, on mornings like this, Dean felt he would rather put his gun to his temple than watch the unhesitating obedience that would follow if Sam heard even the most vaguely implied command).  
  
Then Sam let go of the spoon entirely, dropping his hand down to his lap, and—Dean hadn’t thought it was possible—he hunched down even further, tightening himself into as much of a ball as he could in his chair without bringing his head to his knees. Before Dean could decide whether reaching across the table was worth the risk, Sam lifted his head to look Dean in the eye. He was pale, eyes shadowed and cheekbones too sharp, too much of how he looked in those very first days. It hurt to look at him, an actual physical ache like a spirit plunging its ice-bitter hand into his chest. Dean kept eye contact, hoping Sam couldn’t read that.  
  
“Maybe,” Sam started, then swallowed. “Maybe...”  
  
Dean didn't dare breathe or move, not even an inch, waiting for Sam to get the words out. He didn't need (and couldn't use; fuck, he missed cold clean adrenaline) this gut-churning dread to know that whatever the rest of the sentence was couldn't possibly be good.  _Maybe we should go back to Boulder._   _Maybe you could give me a rule about only having one nightmare a week, I’m sure that would help, Dean._  
  
Sam was having real trouble now, twisting his hands with his eyes shut, rocking back and forth slightly. Dean kept his hands to himself, even though he ached to soothe some of that panic away, lift Sam’s chin up as he told him it was okay. But he couldn’t believe it would help, not now, and if he laid so much as a finger on Sam now, under the fluorescent lights, to anyone else in the room he would just look like an asshole intimidating a starved, traumatized kid, and the last thing Sam needed was any more attention or questions from strangers.  
  
Taking another deep breath, Sam forced out, “I—I d-don’t think—this, this is w-w-working.”  
  
Dean swallowed. His throat was dry, but he couldn’t make his hand pick up his coffee cup. When he responded, his voice was quiet and as even as he could make it. “What’s not working, Sam?”  
  
Sam swallowed again, eyes still shut. He looked like he was in agony, like something was sinking its teeth into his back and he couldn’t shake it off. Dean felt the same blinding, all-consuming drive to find it, stop it, smash its face into the ground so it couldn’t get up again; but this time, he had the foreboding (irrational, he tried to tell himself) suspicion he’d find himself as the the culprit.  
  
Sam’s hand rose, then fluttered between them in an unmistakable gesture of  _you and me_ , and yeah, that was it. Dean didn’t feel much of anything anymore, besides a peculiar deadness and lack of surprise. It wasn’t like this was new, but he hadn’t figured out the solution the last time he’d believed he and Sam couldn’t make anything work, either: the safe place Dean could leave Sam. He should have, by now. He should have been prepared. He could have done at least one thing right for Sam, after all the fuck-ups.  
  
“It,” Sam began, and really, Sam, you don’t have to keep pushing like that, Dean’s got the message. “It’s not—” He gestured again, though less the damning  _us_ and more something wordless and indefinable. “I d-don’t know,” he said, now with an anguished plea audible, something apart from the usual suffering he experienced every time he voiced his opinions and preferences. “I don’t know w-what’s better, you—you have to d-decide. You _have_ to, Dean. Because I c-can’t con-control it.” He looked at Dean again, finally, eyes dark and raw with misery. “I d-don’t think I can, and I’m— _sorry_.” That was deliberate, there, Sam using up his full allowance ( _Jesus, Sam, you could say it as many times a day as you liked, I’m not going to do anything more than wag my finger at you_ ) at breakfast, and Dean, belatedly and with a rush of self-disgust, realized there might be something more going on here than Sam wanting to put miles between them.  
  
He leaned forward, slowly, trying not to startle or scare Sam, just doing his best to keep the conversation private and give Sam’s words the shortest space to travel. “Can’t control what, Sam? What’s eating you here?”  
  
Sam breathed out heavily and met his eyes again, and there just might have been incredulity mixed in the bewilderment there. “ _Me_. I can-can’t control  _me_ , and _you’re not sleeping_.”  
  
Oh. Dean sat back again, feeling stunned like he’d just taken a beer bottle to the head. Except he already had, on a number of occasions, and clearly that was why he’d been so fucking slow, wallowing in his self-pity. Goddammit, he should know better than this now, to keep a step ahead and at least take a stab at what was going on in Sam’s head before he made fucked-up plans based on fucked-up assumptions that would just hurt both of them.  
  
Yeah, of course this was Sam’s issue. Naturally. He couldn't sleep more than a couple hours without his subconscious reeling off a roll of Freak Camp's greatest hits (which Dean figured would send most men twice Sam's age and body weight gibbering and rocking in a corner) and choking off his air as effectively as any strangling ghost—and Sam’s primary concern was Dean’s beauty sleep.  
  
Dean took inhaled slowly, held it for five seconds, then took another. Breathing techniques had been suggested somewhere in that book, and he’d learn the fucking lotus position if it would help him cope better with Sam.  
  
“Dude,” he said at last, and ran a hand over his own hair. “I’m touched, really, but you don’t need to be worrying about that. Believe it or not, I’m not going to shrivel up if I don’t get eight hours of shut-eye, okay?”  
  
Sam didn’t smile. He stared at Dean with that rare, single-minded intensity that made Dean want to cough, fidget with his ring, anything to break that gaze. Then he said, quietly, “I’m—I’m keeping you up. It’s not—I  _don’t like that_.”  
  
Dean shrugged, lifting one hand in a gesture of resignation. “I don’t much like your nightmares either, Sammy. It’s not your fault. We’ll deal.”  
  
“But you don’t have to!”  
  
Dean took a second to absorb that, and another to ask himself why it even surprised him anymore. “What,” he said, and tried hard not to have any particular tone at all, “what do you think would work better? Will it...help if I gave you more space? I’ll work with you here.” He didn’t want to ask if the nightmares had been like this in Boulder and he’d just never known, Sam never thinking to mention it. Or did they only start up when Sam started sleeping by his side?  
  
“I—I don’t know, Dean.” Sam looked even unhappier than before, which Dean hadn’t thought was possible but, awesome, he’d been wrong about that, too. Sam glanced down to his soggy cereal before forcing his head up again. “I wish I could—if, if I just knew h-how to be quiet —”  
  
“God, Sam, stop.” Even though he knew how instantly Sam would obey the order, shutting up tight until Dean asked him a direct question, Dean needed those words to stop right there. He pressed his face into his hands, rubbing at his forehead to avoid looking at Sam’s face. Just for a minute, until he could pull himself together.  
  
When he lowered his hands and opened his eyes, Sam had dropped his chin, both hands in his lap, and he was peeking out at Dean from under his bangs. “Look,” Dean said, and put one of his hands, palm up, onto the table. Reaching, but not pressuring Sam to take it, Sam had to know that that was always up to him. “Do you remember—first night in Boulder.” Sam blinked. Yeah, Dean didn’t much like throwing them back that far, either. “What I said, when you—about the floor. If you’re there, I’m gonna come right down with you. I know you’re not choosing the fucking dreams, it’s no picnic for you and I can’t say it’s a joy ride for me either, but I’m  _not_ leaving you to do it alone. That’s not an option on the table. If you don’t want me crowding you, that’s cool. If you sleep better with the bed to yourself, we can do that. I’ll never be more than a couple feet away. But what’s  _not_ gonna happen is me leaving you to deal with this by yourself. If I gotta mainline coffee to sit up with you and drive the next day, that’s what I’m gonna do, Sam, because we’re in this together.”  _Until you tell me to get lost, that you can manage fine on your own._  
  
Sam watched him as he spoke, and then lowered his head, shoulders drawn down and together. He did not look like Dean’s words comforted him at all, and why the hell should they? Dean hadn’t done anything for him that mattered in the long run when Sam was in camp, and he couldn’t help him now that he was out, either. Maybe it was a mercy Sam didn’t store any hope in him.  
  
He let out another big breath, because really, Winchester, suck it up and deal, you should be used to this by now. “Yeah, I know, words ain’t worth shit,” he said to the window, before dragging his eyes back to Sam. “Just, keep me in the loop, okay? If me getting the hell out of your personal space would help, we can try that, even just for a night.”  
  
“No,” Sam said, and Dean turned back just in time to see him flinch. At himself. He was still almost cringing, eyes shut, as he said, “It—it helps to have you there. It d-does. Except it keeps you —”  
  
“No,” Dean said, and pushed aside his plate of half-eaten waffles to lean forward, his stomach almost flat on the table, until Sam opened his eyes to meet his. “No, no more excepts or buts. If it helps, it helps, and that’s all I give a damn about. Don’t stress about anything else, all right? Because if you try to deal with all this shit yourself, dude, you’re gonna drive us both crazy.” Dean quirked his mouth and hoped like hell that Sam knew it was a joke, or at least he wouldn’t know that Dean was counting on him to stay sane, because Dean was pretty sure mornings like these that his marbles had gotten away from him long ago and he was holding all this together with two paper clips and some duct tape.  
  
Sam fixed him again with that same riveted, uncanny attention. He didn’t smile, but after a long moment, he lifted and squared his shoulders. An almost unnoticeable movement, to anyone but Dean, who knew exactly how rare it was for Sam to pull himself up instead of down. His breath caught in his chest.  
  
“Okay,” Sam said, and met his eyes. Dean could still see all the shades of misery there, the weariness that didn’t leave much room for hope, but that  _okay_ meant that Sam was up for at least another day with him, another day of trying their damnedest to make this work.


	5. Archaeology, by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometime after Part Two, Chapter 11 (early life on the road): This was written exclusively as a gift for whereupon, but she said I should post it, and gave me a title, so I am sharing it with you all as well. I hope you like it -- just please understand it's an exercise in angsty hurt/comfort, that's its sole purpose. And I think I will always return to write about fragile!Sam.

It’s a quiet morning, a fragile morning.  A morning in which they’ve barely spoken, with Dean even more careful than usual with how he moves around Sam, how he touches and doesn’t touch him.  Emphasis on the not touching, given how one time during the night when Dean had managed to wake him up, he’d fucked it up, because Sam hadn’t known who he was, or rather he’d  _thought_ that Dean was someone else (please, please, let him have thought it was someone who wasn’t him).  The resultant screams actually got one of their motel neighbors banging on their door, which had done zip-zilch-nada to improve the situation.  Dean’s appearance at the door, complete with his expression, word choice, and tone of voice in telling the concerned citizens that his kid had fucking  _nightmares_ , okay—probably hadn’t reassured anyone that nothing funny was going on, but they hadn’t come back, nor had they called the police, thank fuck.  
  
By the time he bolted the door and turned around, he found Sam had slipped off the mattress, huddling down into the space between the bed and the wall, shaking with his arms wrapped around his knees.  It took half a fucking hour before Dean (all the while maintaining a foot of space in between them, kneeling in front of Sam) could coax him back to bed, and then he kept the lamp on until morning.  Mostly for Sam’s sake, yeah, so he could see exactly who was and wasn’t in the room, but though Dean isn’t about to admit it to anyone, he might have gotten some of the same reassurance out of the light, too.  Plus, after that big of a shitstorm, he needed to be able to see his kid was still there, breathing, that something like that hadn’t stopped his heart completely.  
  
Usually he reassured himself that his kid was still breathing through the night by touching his back, or his wrist, slipping a palm over his chest—anywhere safe, if Dean didn’t already have an arm wrapped around him, but no way could he do it now, not even an hour after the last attempt.  He lay on his stomach, head turned so he could watch Sam through half-closed eyes, hands stowed under his pillow to avoid temptation, while Sam clutched a pillow to himself with both arms as though it were a life raft.  Dean wouldn’t have bet that either of them got any sleep, from then until the sun rose to shine enough light through the curtains that it seemed like time to get up.  
  
So, yeah, not a start to an awesome day.  And for all Dean wants to believe that Sam thought it was someone back in that fucking hellhole who was grabbing him, and not Dean—he just doesn’t know who Sam’s seeing yet, who Sam thinks he is.  So he’s being careful of that, trying to respect Sam’s bubble, which he guesses he should be doing more of, anyway.  
  
But fuck if he can leave Sam sitting all alone, looking so damn vulnerable, on one side of the booth.  Fuck if he has to look at the top of Sam’s head through the entire meal, without the hope of exchanging more than a couple syllables, if he wants to push that much.  So he lets Sam in first, before sitting down next to him, and hopes very fucking much that Sam doesn’t feel pinned in.  
  
Breakfast goes okay, though.  Sam nods when Dean points to the special and asks how that sounds, and that makes ordering easy.  When the pancakes arrive, Sam spends more time than usual cutting them into precisely even and small pieces, but he  _does_ eat them once that prep work is done, which lets Dean breathe a little easier and start to notice his own food ain’t half bad.  
  
They’re nearly done when Sam sets down his silverware—so carefully, there’s hardly a clink—and turns his head slightly to Dean.  “W-when you...”  
  
“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean says, and slides out of the booth to let him out.  Sam’s “thanks” is almost too soft to catch, and he  _still_ doesn’t raise his head even halfway to catch Dean’s eye, and Dean swallows.  He sits back down on the edge of the seat, because yeah, on a morning like this, he’s going to watch Sam make it to restroom entrance.  There’s nobody there to care to sue him, anyway.  
  
He watches Sam’s skinny frame (this fucking kid that he loves so much, more than anything in his goddamn life, and how can it  _hurt_ so much at the same time just to see him and how vulnerable, goddamn breakable he looks to Dean and anyone else who happens to see him) walk down the aisle, and sees too late the group of stocky older dudes drinking coffee at a table along the way.  They’re almost certainly harmless, except they have the slightly rough, casual look of outdoorsmen, or  _hunters_ , except they don’t give off that vibe.  They don’t pay any attention to the kid approaching, and Sam just turns his head slightly, averting his face, as he takes one step veering away from them, one step out of his path down the middle of the aisle.  
  
Dean swallows, turns back to the table.  He stares down into his lukewarm black coffee and thinks about the quiet despondency with which Sam had said  _everyone knows I’m not—normal_.  How Dean had fucking tried to tell him that’s not true, there’s no such thing as normal, everyone’s got their quirks and doesn’t feel at home in some situation.  
  
How the fuck did he become such a goddamn liar to his kid?  
  
It’s not that Dean hadn’t meant it at the time, but—yeah, it’s true, Sam does stick out.  He attracts attention just by how skittish he is, how utterly terrified of all other people, broadcasting all the stupid tells John trained out of Dean since he was five, and it’s not like it’s Sam’s  _fault_ or anything he can help right now, anything he doesn’t have reason for... But it’s the same fucking effect, all the same.    
  
Some days, Dean manages to tell himself with something like certainty that it’s going to get better than this.  That Sam is going to get better, really better, strong and confident and able to tell Dean to fuck right off when he’s being an ass, to laugh in his face and saunter off alone if that’s what he wants to do, no matter what that does to Dean’s heart, and Dean isn’t sure if that note of pride will be any consolation to him then, but dammit he wants to believe Sam’s capable of that, anyway.    
  
This isn’t going to be one of those days.  
  
Dean is taken off guard when Sam appears back by his side, but he stands up quickly to let Sam back into the booth.  There, Sam exhales audibly, opening and closing his hands in his lap.  There’s something different in his posture—he isn’t hunched tight in a ball of tension and fear from everything around him, as he was before.  He glances once Dean’s way, even if it’s still somewhere around Dean’s middle, and then Dean realizes Sam is leaning toward him.  Close, even.  Like he wants to lean against Dean’s shoulder, but can’t bring himself to make contact.  
  
Holding his breath, Dean lifts his arm, laying it on top of the booth.  “Hey,” he says quietly.  “You can—if you want.  It’s okay.”  
  
Then Sam raises his eyes to Dean’s face.  Just for a few seconds, and Dean doesn’t know what he sees or what passes there, but an instant later Sam drops against him, pressing close with half his face buried to Dean’s collarbone.  Both his hands are contorted together in his lap.  Dean drops his arm, oh so carefully, around Sam’s shoulder and side, to lightly rub Sam’s forearm in hopes of getting him to relax his grip.  It works, sort of: Sam gradually releases his own hands, and they move to take hold instead of Dean’s overshirt.  
  
Dean realizes the quiet, nearly inaudible noises he’s hearing are from Sam, the same noises he hears sometimes at night when it’s just starting to get bad.  “Shh, shh,” he says, and dares to tighten his grip, to reach across with his other arm to hold Sam to him.  “We’re okay.  I got you.”  Fuck him if he could find anything else to say, for all the motherfucking good those lines had done earlier this morning.  “Did they say anything to you?” he asks, dropping his voice and chin lower, like there’s any chance someone might overhear.  
  
Sam shakes his head against Dean’s chest.  A shudder runs through him, then he swallows and visibly relaxes, resting his forehead against Dean’s shoulder before glancing up again at him.  Sam looks exhausted, weary to the bone, frightened and haunted by things he can’t possibly name to Dean.  But he’s more there with Dean now than he has been in more hours than Dean wants to count, and for that, Dean is grateful.  
  
Sam rests against him again, but he’s quiet now, and he is actually  _resting_ now as opposed to attempting to burrow into Dean’s side, to hide from the world.  He’s content to lean the side of his head against Dean’s shoulder, looking out with him over the table and the rest of the restaurant.  Dean’s able to dig out his wallet with one hand, keeping the other around Sam, and he thinks Sam might be able to sleep once they get on the road.  They won’t get a full day’s drive, but maybe they’ll find somewhere secluded enough, with some trees for shade, that he can pull over, roll down the windows, and they can both take a nap, safe in the sunshine and open air.  
  
He still doesn’t know, isn’t ready to place any bets, about whether or how soon things might get better, but for right now, anyway, he thinks they’re gonna manage okay like this.  They’ll keep each other afloat.


	6. Mend, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Part Two, between Chapters 12 and Chapter 13: It's going to be a good day, because that's what Dean said.

It's meant to be a good day. It's  _going_  to be a good day, because that's what Dean said. If Dean says something, it will be true. After all, he got Sam out of Freak Camp, he came for Sam just like he'd promised he would, and that's the hardest, most impossible thing Sam can imagine anybody doing, especially for a monster like him.  
  
But Dean did it and that means Dean can do anything, and Sam will do whatever Dean wants him to, whatever he has to, to make that true, which shouldn't be difficult. It shouldn't be difficult at all, because Sam is out of Freak Camp, is hundreds of miles away from Freak Camp, and it is a warm day, and  _he_  is warm, but only comfortably so; his skin doesn't feel like it's being burnt in slow motion, like he's being hollowed out by degrees, and he isn't hungry, and reals can't hurt him anymore. Dean won't let them, and he shouldn't have to remind himself of that fact. He should  _know_  it by now, should know it the same way he has always been able to know everything else, to believe immediately that disobedience meant punishment and punishment meant  _blood_  and no monster ever deserved anything better.  
  
Dean won't let anything bad happen to him, he knows now; Dean has told him -- but Dean can't be there always, he reminds himself out of habit, years of  _don't hope_ , and then digs his fingernails into his palms reflexively, because he's a monster, but he isn't ungrateful, and he needs to remember. Dean has given him so much already. He has no right to expect anything more, to  _want_  anything more, to expect that Dean will be there always, that he will spend every moment of the rest of his life with a  _monster_. After all, he's not with Sam right now; he left Sam  _all by himself_ , out in the real world, where  _anything_  -- and Sam digs his fingernails in deeper, cuts the thought off before it can go any further.   
  
Dean  _didn't_  leave him. Dean is in the rest stop, and he'll come back at any minute, and in the meantime, Sam is still safe. He isn't in Freak Camp, and in this position, as he sits at this picnic table, its paint faded by years of sunlight and weather, where Dean told him to wait ( _No_ , he corrects himself, where Dean had  _asked_  him if he wanted to wait, and he had wanted to make Dean happy, had wanted to show him that he could be good and brave and obedient, so he'd said  _yes_ , and had gotten out of the car), Dean's car is blocking him from the road and he's got the concrete hulk of the rest stop at his back.  
  
Nobody can see him from the road, nobody driving by, nobody who might be looking for monsters, or for the bounty they bring, and no one can come up on him from behind, not without him hearing their footsteps on the gravel first.   
  
He shifts his weight and makes himself rest his palms flat on the table, against the soft-splintered wood. The gesture makes him want to cringe, because he knows what ( _will_ ) once would have come next, but he doesn't want Dean to come out of the rest stop and see him with his hands balled up into fists. Whenever Dean sees that, Dean gets this look on his face like he's at once angry and exhausted and horribly  _sad_ , and though Sam knows now (Dean has  _said_ , and that means it's true, that means Sam will believe him) that it isn't directed at him, he still doesn't like when Dean looks like that. Especially because he knows it's his fault, even if Dean doesn't blame him for it. Sometimes he lets himself wonder what Dean looked like before he met Sam, before he got Sam out, and when he does, Dean is always smiling, and he never looks tired. He always looks like he did when he came to see Sam at camp, when he only had to see a monster for a few hours at most; he always looks brave and strong and confident, fearless, the brightest thing Sam has ever seen.  
  
But thinking about that always makes Sam sad, too, and he doesn't want Dean to come out and see him like that, either. He tilts his face up to distract himself from the sight of his hands, his fingers spread as though waiting for the nails that will be driven between them, his wrists bared as though waiting for the metal that will lock around them, and the sun is hot on his face. There's the edge of a breeze against his face, and the air smells like fresh green things, and loam, and sunbaked dirt, somehow different here from the scarred brown earth of the desert. There are vending machines on the other side of the graffiti-streaked rest stop; he saw them when Dean pulled in, and he tells himself that if he's good, if he can do this, he'll let himself use the quarters Dean gave him yesterday to get a soda, once Dean comes back.  
  
Because until Dean comes back, he doesn’t think he'll be able to move. There's another vehicle parked on the other side of the gravel-scattered lot, a badly-rusting truck with a white camper shell and a windshield with a crack like the first strand of a giant spider's web, and though Sam doesn't think the real leaning against it is a hunter -- even though he's wearing camo, he doesn't have the posture for it, the sharp physical confidence in the way he stands -- the look he's giving Sam is familiar.   
  
It's not  _hungry_ , exactly. It's the look of a predator seeking prey, an aggressor seeking weakness. Seeking fear, and finding it.  
  
And Sam is, he makes himself acknowledge (if he acknowledges it, he can work through it, he reminds himself), suddenly very, very scared. Which is stupid, he tells himself; it's a stupid monster reaction, because Dean says there's no way people will know what he is just by looking at him. Dean tells him that they'll think he's a real, and if they give him any shit, to tell them to fuck off or kick 'em in the nuts, whatever's easier. Dean tells him this like it's easy to do, and he marvels at that, at the idea that Dean thinks him so strong and so brave that he could be capable of doing it. And he'll try, he will, for Dean, because he will  _always_  try for Dean, but he knows already how it will end, no matter how much Dean believes in  _him_.  
  
His voice will lock up, and his hands will shake, and if he's lucky, he'll be on the ground, his face shoved into the dirt and the gravel, and the gua-- _real_ 's boot on his back, when Dean comes out.  
  
If he  _isn't_  lucky--  
  
He can't think about that. He won't. He won't, because there are some things he can work through and some things that he cannot, he  _knows_  that, and if he loses control here,  _now_ \--  
  
He  _won't_ , but he already is, and he can feel his pulse starting to race, even as he swallows and tells himself to focus on other things. Focus on the breeze, or the noise of cars in the distance, or the noise of the leaves rustling.  
  
Focus on the sound of footsteps, of heavy boots and heavier footfalls, as the real pushes away from the camper at last and comes towards him.  
  
If Sam got up now, he could probably make it to the Impala before the real caught him. He could make it to the Impala, and lock the doors, and the real would find a rock and break the window, or he would have a gun and would tell Sam to get out and Sam would have to because otherwise the real would shoot him and there would be blood all over Dean's car and Dean would have gotten him out only so that Sam could get his car dirty, or maybe the real wouldn't have anything, but then Dean would come out and see how scared Sam was, how stupidly afraid he was, how much of a cowardly  _monster_  he was, that he saw  _one real_  and had to go hide, even after everything Dean told him, even after everything Dean taught him about how to be brave.  
  
And then it's too late to do anything; the moment has passed and the real is sliding in across the table, is sitting across from Sam and grinning,  _smirking_. He's gaunt, but not monster-thin, and his eyes have that sheen of violence, of something unhinged, that Sam recognizes instantly from this distance, and that makes him realize too late how stupid he really is.  
  
He should have run when he had the chance. He could have made it up to Dean. He could have apologized or done whatever Dean wanted,  _anything_ , but now it's too late, and he  _can't_  make himself move, not at all. As though if he's still, maybe the real will go away. As though his stupid monster body still believes that will work out here, out in the real world, as though his stupid monster brain believes that somehow maybe the real won't see him, or will think he wouldn't be any fun and will find somebody else.   
  
That won't work. It worked in Freak Camp, but reals are different from guards, somehow, and it won't work here. He  _knows_  that, but he has to try.  
  
The real opens his mouth and though Sam's stomach curls at the scent of decay and tobacco, he doesn't cringe. After all, he's smelled much worse; he's had much, much worse on his face, in his mouth, on his tongue. "You out here all by yourself?" the real asks, leaning in slightly as he does, and takes off his baseball cap, its logo faded into indecipherability, runs a hand through greasy, matted curls. Sam's glad, then, that he put his hands on the table; maybe they will be stabilized against the wood, maybe the table will absorb the tremors, make them invisible. Maybe the real will think him braver than he really is and will leave him alone. "That your nice, shiny car?" the real asks, and it's ostensibly a question, but the look on the real's face means that he already knows the answer, and this, too, is familiar; this Sam understands.  
  
Punishments are much more effective if he has to admit to being bad, first. If he has to admit that he deserves whatever's to come, because he's a monster, and monsters always deserve what happens to them. Monsters _ask_  for it to happen, simply by  _being_ , no matter what Dean says, no matter how Dean tries to convince him otherwise.  
  
Rewards are more effective that way, too. If he makes it clear that he has nothing, and deserves nothing, and would be grateful for whatever they might be willing to give him--  
  
Sam shakes his head, one quick jerk. His teeth are clenched and he thinks that if he opens his mouth, he might be sick, even before he's done anything, even before the real has  _asked_  him to do anything. He certainly doesn't trust himself to speak.  
  
If he's good, Dean will be back. If he is good, for just a few minutes longer, Dean will come back and will make everything okay.  
  
If he's good. If he's good. But monsters aren't ever good. Monsters are born bad, and deserve to be hurt, and just because Dean doesn't know that yet doesn't mean that  _this_  real doesn't.  
  
The real's smile widens. "Yeah? You a hitcher, boy? Where you lookin' to go?"   
  
Sam swallows. Keeping quiet will only make it worse, will only draw even more attention to himself, to his _weakness_ , because a real wouldn't be afraid. A real would answer, would respond, would tell the other real to _fuck off_ , and maybe there's still a chance, maybe there's still a  _chance_  that he can act like a real. Not a very good real, but a real all the same. For Dean. "N-no," he begins, and cuts himself off when the word gets stuck in his mouth, when he begins to stutter. "Nowhere," he tries again, but his voice is no more than a whisper, and maybe it would have been better to stay quiet after all.  
  
"Yeah?" the real says. "Tell you what, you come with me and I'll take you wherever you wanna go. Even if it's nowhere."  
  
"No," Sam says, but it's not any stronger this time, not any louder, because even just  _saying_  no hurts, saying  _no_ to a real who isn't Dean. He doesn't have  _permission_ , and he wants to look down, to look away, avert his eyes. He wants to look down so badly, but Dean would be so disappointed if he did, because Dean told him  _not_  to, Dean told him to keep eye contact, to  _try_. Even though every instinct is screaming at him to look down, because he can't be a threat, can't be dominant, can't  _pretend_ , not like this, not to a real, it will  _hurt_ \--  
  
"So the way I see it," the real says, "that ain't your car. And you're a real pretty thing to be out here all by yourself, huh? Real young, too. You got ID? You got people looking for you?" Sam's hands are cold; his mouth is dry. He doesn't think it's a question he's meant to answer, but he couldn't have, anyway. Even for Crusher, he doesn't think he could have made himself answer. Even for the Director, and Dean couldn't have meant for this to happen, couldn't have meant to make him  _useless_  like this, to make him a broken, useless monster.  _Please_. "Yeah, 's what I figured. So I tell you what. You come with me, maybe we go for a nice ride, get to know each other a little better, and I don't call the cops and tell 'em about this kid I saw tryin' to catch rides with guys, maybe offering something sweet in exchange? You know what I mean?"  
  
Sam can't even make himself  _blink_. He's distantly amazed that he can hear anything past the rush of blood in his ears, the staccato rhythm of his sick monster heartbeat. He clamps his teeth together and tastes dread, icy and electric, and tries not to think about cattle prods and zippers and his own fingers numb with cold.  
  
It doesn't work.  
  
"Sound like a deal?" the real says. "'Cause I tell you, I know what the cops in these parts do to boys like you. I got me a friend in the force, he tells me  _aaaall_  about it. What you say, you wanna find out first hand?"  
  
Sam's going to pass out. He's dizzy, and he can't breathe, and his vision is starting to fray at the edges, to go white the way it did when the guards were choking him, or when they held him down for too long. He's going to pass out and then the real is going to drag him away and he won't be able to fight or shout or even  _whisper_  for Dean, the real is going to chain him up inside that white camper, is going to gag him or cover his mouth with nicotine-stained fingers and tell him to be good and maybe he'll get to go eventually, and Dean is going to come out and see that he's gone and Dean will not come for him this time, because he's a stupid ungrateful  _whore_ who should have known better than to let himself get taken away, and Dean will forget about him, Dean will not save him, Dean will never come for him--  
  
Sam registers the crunch of gravel behind him, the sound of footsteps, at the same time Dean's hand settles warm and steady on his shoulder, and then he almost  _does_  pass out, though it's relief, now, not fear. "Sam," Dean says, and it's not a question. It's a reminder, it's a  _promise_ , and at last Sam can let himself close his eyes, because Dean is here and Dean saw that he was brave and tried his best to be good and Dean is giving him permission not to be, for a moment.   
  
When Dean speaks again, he sounds completely different, not gentle in the least. "You got three seconds to get the fuck away from him, get in your truck, and get the  _fuck_  out of my sight," Dean says, and it could be conversational, if not for the flat edge to his voice. Not warning,  _promising_ , but it's different, too, this time. It's not the same voice he uses when he makes promises to Sam, and what does that mean, that Dean makes exceptions for him, special rules for him, for a  _monster_?  
  
"Or what?" the real says, and Sam opens his eyes. Dean's hand is still on his shoulder, tighter now but not so much as to hurt, so he can still breathe, even though it hurts to do  _that_ , like his lungs have forgotten how to work, like maybe they don't  _deserve_  to work, not anymore. The real isn't looking at him anymore, though; the real is looking at Dean. Sam lets himself glance at Dean, too, and is in time to catch the way Dean's mouth twitches briefly in something that is not a smile.   
  
It should scare him, that look. It would, he thinks distantly, if it were on the face of anyone but Dean, and it will later anyway, but what does it mean that he makes exceptions for  _Dean_ ; would Dean hate him if he knew?  
  
"I put a bullet in your head," Dean says. "If I'm feeling nice. Or I put a bullet in each a' your knees and see if you can drive your piece a'shit truck outta here in time before I finish the job. And you know, I really don't think I'm feeling very nice at the moment."   
  
The real stares at him. Dean keeps one hand on Sam's shoulder, uses the other to push aside his jacket and flannel overshirt to reveal the butt of the gun he has tucked in his waistband. "Three seconds," he says again, very quietly, and it's all Sam can hear. Dean's voice, at once so quiet and louder than everything. "One."  
  
The real pushes back sudden and hard enough that Sam thinks for a moment he'll land on his ass, but he doesn't; he only scrambles back to his truck without once looking back. The engine coughs once before turning over, and gravel spins and spits beneath the tires, and then he's on the highway, heading  _away_.   
  
Dean lets his shirt fall back into place, covering the gun, and when he looks at Sam, he seems to have aged fifteen years in the last two minutes; there's something hollow and wrecked in his eyes, and his shoulders slump as though with grief or weariness or maybe just as though bruised, as though it's too much effort to stand up straight any longer beneath the weight of injury. That's something Sam knows very well, and he thinks that when he can think clearly again, he'll feel guilty for it, for making Dean hurt like that. For making Dean know what it's like to be a monster.  
  
Dean's voice, though, when he speaks, is level, or at least, he's trying to make it be, and for Dean Sam would overlook anything; he can certainly pretend not to notice the tightness of Dean's voice, and the strain that reverberates just below it. "You okay?"   
  
"Yeah," Sam says, and he makes his voice calm for Dean, and marvels at his success. "I'm okay," he repeats, part reassurance for Dean and part reminder to himself: nothing happened. He's  _fine_ , so there's no reason that his hands should still be shaking. And even though Dean is upset, even though he's  _hurt_ , he hasn't even said anything about how Sam should have defended himself, about how he's tired of always having to save Sam, to protect him. About how Sam is such a fucking stupid monster, to have not yet learned his lessons by now, to not yet be able to pass for a real at  _all_ , and Dean  _promised_ , Sam reminds himself, that he would put a bullet in his head instead of taking him back to Freak Camp, instead of exchanging him for a better monster. He  _promised_.  
  
Dean moves his hand away at last, takes it from Sam's shoulder. "Okay," he says. "Let's, let's hit the road, huh?"  
  
"Okay," Sam repeats, and if he recognizes his tone belatedly as one deadened, one more fitting to  _yes, sir_  than to the casual, easy, permission-granting words that reals get to use, that Dean wants  _him_  to use, that  _is_  okay, because at least Dean doesn't appear to notice, or if he does, he's waiting until later to punish Sam for it. Which is his right, Sam reminds himself, and wonders how the punishment might manifest, if it might at last be in the form of the blades in Dean's boots, the gun at his waist or the lighter in the pocket of his jeans, or if it might be worse, if it might be in Dean's voice, if Dean might look this tired, this broken, for the rest of the day, for all of tomorrow, every time he looks at Sam, every time he  _thinks_  about Sam, every time Sam allows himself the impossible, undeserved privilege of looking at him and Dean catches him at it.   
  
But there's no use thinking about it now. Dean will tell him, when he deserves to know. He makes himself get up from the table, fearing for a second that his legs will not hold him, but they do, and he walks side by side with Dean to the car; they move apart only at the last moment. He wants to thank Dean for that, but he's not sure that Dean did it deliberately, and he doesn't want to draw any more attention to how  _weak_  he is, to how needy he is. Dean already knows, but Sam's not going to remind him, not if he can help it.  
  
 _A bullet in the head_ , he thinks, and keeps his arms at his sides, doesn't let himself fold them across his chest as though he could possibly keep himself together that way.  _Salt and burn your bones. He promised._  
  
But in the Impala, with the door closed, all that metal keeping him safe from the rest of the world, he can't keep from hunching over as Dean starts the engine. The blue sky doesn't seem peaceful anymore, not at all; rather, it's menacing,  _hungry_ , all that open space and nowhere to hide, and the sunlight on his face is almost too much to bear. He wants to climb into the backseat, to hide like a proper monster out of sight of the reals, in the dark, but he doesn't dare; all he can do is cross his arms over his chest, tuck his chin down and wait.  
  
 _It will get better_ , he tells himself, this will pass, though he can't believe it because he's a monster, and monsters are stupid, monsters are liars, monsters are whores. Even outside of Freak Camp. Otherwise, the real wouldn't have asked him, wouldn't have expected it --  _that_  -- of him.   
  
But he'd hoped. He'd  _hoped_. And Dean had told him that no one would know, and Dean is always right, and that means that he did something to give himself away; he  _acted_  like a monster. He doesn't look like one, according to Dean, but something in the way he behaved gave him away, and he doesn't know what it was, so he won't be able to keep from doing it again, and maybe the next time Dean won't come back in time or maybe the next time Dean will see it, whatever it is, and will be disgusted and will  _give_  him away, if he doesn't just call the ASC right there and tell them where to find their stupid, ungrateful monster, because what if Dean decides that he isn't worth the effort of a bullet after all, what if Dean decides he doesn't want to deal with the mess of Sam's body, of digging a grave or pouring the gasoline, striking the match.  
  
"Sam," Dean says, and Sam immediately knows he was stupid to hope, to imagine even for a second that Dean wouldn't ask, that Dean wouldn't be angry that Sam hadn't defended himself, that Sam had gotten himself into that situation at all.  
  
"Y-yeah?" Sam says. His voice is choked, rusty. He's barely able to force the word out; it lodges in his throat, abrades his mouth.  _Please_ , he thinks, and doesn't know what he is pleading for. He's never had reason to doubt Dean before; if he doubts him now, it's only because he's even more of a worthless monster, a waste of space, something Dean should have never bothered getting out of Freak Camp where it belonged.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner. I, uh. What did he want?" Dean keeps his eyes on the road, the horizon, like he doesn't want to look at Sam, like he can't  _stand_  to look at Sam, especially not when Sam says what he's about to say. Like he already knows, and he wants to make Sam admit it, just like the other real did. Just like the guards did, and Sam will not let himself cry. Not now. This isn't a nightmare, this is real, there is no excuse.  
  
That's okay, he tells himself. Reminds himself. Dean  _should_  know, because Dean knows everything, and Dean _shouldn't_  want to look at him anymore, now that he knows how much Sam is a monster, how deeply and how thoroughly  _monster_  is buried in his bones, in his stupid, cowardly monster heart, seeping thick and black through his blood to taint everything he does.  
  
Dean shouldn't want to, and Sam shouldn't hope otherwise.  
  
All the same, he looks down so that he won't have to watch Dean avoiding him, so that he won't have to watch the way Dean's expression will change.  
  
"H-he," Sam says, and stops, and swallows. The words taste sour in his mouth. He's tasted worse, but he doesn't recall it ever stinging quite like this. "He. T-told me th-that I should, I should. Go with him." He notices that his hands have made themselves into fists again, balled on his jeans, and hopes that Dean won't have noticed, too. "He-he s-said that if I did-didn't, he would te-tell the police about m-me."   
  
He doesn't think he needs to say the rest aloud, and he's grateful for it, because he doesn't think that he could. If Dean gets mad at him for the elision, Dean might hit him, but it will be what Sam deserves, and he won't mind. And if by some miracle Dean doesn't know what Sam's keeping back, maybe Dean will let him stay, stay alive or stay  _here_ , for a little while longer, just until the next time it happens, until Dean sees it himself. Which is fucking horrible of him, he should just  _tell_  Dean, and surely this is what it means to be a monster: to lie and keep secrets and--  
  
"Oh,  _fuck,_ " Dean says, words low and broken and wounded enough that Sam flinches instinctively, even though he'd told himself he wouldn't. The Impala swerves, comes to a halt on the side of the road, and Sam wonders how the cost of any damage that might have occurred to its undercarriage as a result of his confession will be taken from him, how he'll pay with his body for the damage to the body of Dean's most beloved possession. He doesn't think Dean will hesitate, now that Dean understands what he really is. Dean looks at him at last, eyes dark and sharp with horror. "Sammy, fuck, did he, did he  _touch_  you?"  
  
"No," Sam says, and maybe that's all Dean cares about, he thinks with relief. Maybe as long as he didn't let himself get touched by the real, as long as he didn't  _ask_  for anything, not with words--  
  
"Sam," Dean says, and there's something in his voice that Sam doesn't have a name for. He sounds like he's hurt or scared or sad, but all at once, and like he's disappointed, too. He looks like he's going to say something else, but he doesn't speak, as though he forgot what he was going to say or as though whatever it was, he decided against it. Sam waits patiently; as long as Dean hasn't said it aloud, Sam doesn't have to accept that it's true.  
  
"C'mere," Dean says eventually, and Sam slides fractionally closer to him. "Closer," Dean says, and then draws in a breath that sounds ragged, like the aftermath of being kicked in the stomach. "If -- you want to."  
  
It could have been an order, and Sam would have followed it gladly. Instead, Dean  _asked_ , as though he thought that Sam might say no, and Sam feels something like euphoria for an instant at the thought that Dean still wants to be near him. He slides the rest of the way across the seat, his shoulder against Dean's the way it has been so many times before, so many times before when Dean has let him sit beside him in his beautiful car, as though he thinks Sam  _belongs_  here, as though he isn't sickened by the thought of a monster riding beside him, _touching_  him. Dean doesn't say anything about the way Sam's hands are still balled into fists, but he rests his hands over them, callused and warm, and Sam feels something unlock, something loosen, deep within his chest. "Sammy, you're okay," Dean says, and Sam nods, because it's a question, he knows that about Dean's voice, now, knows what that tone means, and he needs to answer it, but he cannot speak, overwhelmed with fear-adrenaline and raw, blinding relief.   
  
After a minute, Dean moves his hands; he raises one to the side of Sam's face, lifting Sam's head almost unbearably gently,  _kindly_ , until he can look Sam in the eye, and the other hand comes to rest on the back of Sam's neck, Dean's thumb brushing the hair at the nape. "I won't-- I swear, I'll never let that happen to you again," he says. "I am so fucking sorry."  
  
Sam needs to tell him it isn't his fault, that he doesn't have anything to apologize for, that he  _shouldn't_  be sorry, because he's the best thing in Sam's world, the best thing Sam has ever known, but he can't make his mouth open, still, and a moment later, he realizes that his shoulders are shaking again, and that his lungs are heaving like he can't breathe, his stomach clenching like he's going to be sick after all, even as he isn't making any noise and his face is perfectly dry. He needs to  _answer Dean_ , damn it, but his fucking stupid monster body won't work right, and then Dean's moving again, but not away; he's pulling Sam closer, pulling Sam against him so that Sam can press his face against Dean's shoulder, against the creased leather of Dean's jacket, against  _Dean_. So that all he has to know is Dean, and all he has to be aware of is Dean, and all he has to think about, right now, is the fact that even after this, Dean is still willing to  _hold_  him.  
  
He lets out a breath, then, and lets himself lean in, lets himself appreciate the steadiness of Dean's hand on the back of his neck, and on his shoulder. He's a monster, and monsters deserve the dark; monsters do not deserve to get  _apologies_  for being what they are, and they don't deserve this, don't deserve to be  _touched_  like this, like they're anything other than filth and evil, especially when they  _doubted_ , when they were given a promise and they were so fucking stupid and faithless as to think for a moment that it wouldn't be kept, but Dean doesn't seem to think so, even after what Sam told him about the real. Dean moves his hand once, traces a slow circle on the back of Sam's neck, and Sam closes his eyes. He can breathe, now, steadily, and Dean said that he will be okay, that he  _is_  okay, so he will let himself believe it, for a little while.   
  
Just for a little while. Because Dean always tells him the truth, no matter what.  
  
He doesn't deserve this at all, but he's a stupid, greedy monster, so he'll take it anyway. He'll take it, even though it isn't his to know, to experience. Not after what the real said. Not after how he reacted to the real, and  _certainly_ not after how he had the audacity to doubt Dean for even a second.  
  
Dean believes that he should have it, though, and that makes it right, he tells himself, because what Dean wants is right. Dean is always right. Dean defines right, because Dean has always been right to him, has been the only right thing he has ever known. He's not sure that his logic is sound, but he repeats it to himself anyway, and eventually he's vaguely aware of his breathing evening out, of the dull grey wave of post-panic exhaustion, and sometime later, that his position has shifted; he's still beside Dean, still breathing in  _Dean_ , leather and gun oil and hair gel and whiskey, and Dean's shoulder is still against his, Dean's hand is still on the back of his neck like a promise,  _another_  promise, or maybe the same one, maybe just a  _reminder_ , but he's no longer resting against Dean's chest, and Dean is driving, now, one hand on the wheel. They're moving, and Sam can hear the engine, the sound of Dean's car and the noise of the tires on the highway like another promise; they're getting away from the rest stop, they're disappearing. Even if the real did call the police, because of Sam and because of the way he made Dean threaten the real, the police won't be able to find them, not right away. And Dean is a hunter, and Dean is a Winchester (just like Sam is, now, even though he will never be any bit as brave or strong or good as Dean), and no matter what, Dean will make them be okay.  
  
"You're safe," Dean says, his voice barely audible over the noise of the road, even though Sam hasn't opened his eyes, hasn't yet made any motion that might have told Dean that he is awake. And Dean will tell him to go back to the other side of the car, now, he thinks, because Dean has already been so nice, surely he doesn't want to have to keep reassuring Sam, to drive with  _a monster_  this close, this close and in the way and so demanding, so needy--  
  
But Dean doesn't.  
  
Dean doesn't say anything, and a few seconds later, he moves his hand down from the back of Sam's neck to Sam's shoulder, drawing Sam even closer.  
  
Dean holds him close, and lets him  _stay_ , and Dean will keep him safe. Sam closes his eyes again, and this time when he falls asleep, it's to the conscious knowledge that Dean is beside him -- that no matter what happens, no matter what he does or where he is when Dean decides to put that bullet in his head, once Dean will have been beside him, and he beside Dean, and Dean will have  _let_  him be there, will have said he wanted Sam there, despite everything, and Dean always, always keeps his promises.  
  
That makes it a good day.  
  
  
  
  
 _Coda: Dean_  
  
No matter how many good days they have, Dean will never stop noticing them, will never begin to take them for granted. He can't even imagine ever doing so; even on days like this,  _very_  good days, he can't help but wonder when things will turn sour, when Sam's breath will hitch or his nails will dig into his palms or he'll refuse to meet Dean's eyes for a reason Dean does not understand, and which Sam wouldn't be able to explain, even if Dean could ask him.  
  
And then Dean steps outside, steps from the cool concrete shelter of the rest stop and out into that sunlight, and has his answer:  _now_. Sam's in the same place he was when Dean left him (for a second, only for a second, but Dean knows better than almost anyone how long a second can be, how much can be lost or destroyed in that time-fraction; he  _should_  have known better), but that's the only thing about him that has not changed.   
  
There's a man sitting across from Sam, now, some asshole in camo and a baseball cap, and Sam's hands are flat on the table,  _splayed_  there. Dean almost can't make himself look at Sam properly, almost can't make himself register the details, but he  _abandoned_  Sam, left him on his own the way he'd promised he never would, and he doesn't deserve that mercy, doesn't deserve to be spared any of the knowledge of how terribly he's just fucked up, how badly he's let Sam down.  
  
Sam's whole body is hunched, not  _slumped_  but wound painfully tight, as though he's trying very hard to will himself out of existence, and he is so fucking pale, and Dean thinks he might not even be breathing. His eyes are huge and dark and focused intently on the man across from him, and he does not look up as Dean approaches, as though he's somewhere else entirely. As though he and this stranger, this stranger who has managed to terrify him so completely, are the only two people in the world.  
  
When Dean touches Sam's shoulder, he can feel Sam's whole body trembling, shivers like the fluttering wings of a trapped, panicking bird, and he knows instantly, nauseating flash of revelation, why Sam was staring at the man. Why Sam is, still.   
  
 _Nobody will know, Sam. Just look 'em in the eye, and if they give you any shit, tell 'em to fuck off or kick 'em in the nuts, whatever's easiest._ He hadn't meant it as an order, but he should have known better. By now, he should know better than to say  _anything_ , he should just keep his fucking mouth shut, because no matter what he says, it seems to make things worse for Sam. He hadn't meant  _go stare your nightmares in the face, Sam, and don't you dare look away_ , but of course Sam had taken it like that anyway.   
  
Fuck. Fuck.  _Fuck_.  
  
"Sam," he says, and at the word, at his name, Sam relaxes minutely. He's still shaking, still shaking hard, but he closes his eyes, the expression on his face so fucking  _grateful_  that Dean has the sudden urge to close his mouth around the barrel of his gun and pull the trigger.  
  
"You got three seconds to get the fuck away from him, get in your truck, and get the  _fuck_  out of my sight," Dean says to the man who did this to Sam, but it's not his voice, and it hits him a second later, who he sounds like. Dad, at his scariest, dead-eyed and unemotional and perfectly capable of slitting a man's throat without blinking.  
  
"Or what?" the man says,  _sneers_ , and a small, very cold part of Dean smiles at the thought of shooting him in the stomach and dragging him behind the rest stop to die slowly and all alone.  
  
He swallows. He lets the thought slip away. For Sam, he says, "I put a bullet in your head, if I'm feeling nice. Or I put a bullet in each a' your knees and see if you can drive your piece a'shit truck outta here in time before I finish the job. And you know, I really don't think I'm feeling very nice at the moment."   
  
The asshole doesn't move, doesn't look away, and Dean, careful to keep one hand on Sam's shoulder (though whether he's grounding Sam or himself, he's not certain), pushes layers of leather and flannel aside to reveal the butt of his gun. "Three seconds," he says, and he wonders what he'll do if this isn't enough. What  _can_  he do, that won't make Sam even more afraid? "One."  
  
The man moves, at last. He pushes back from the table with enough force that Sam flinches, and then he's running for his truck. The door slams and the engine coughs and Dean lets his shirt fall back into place. He makes sure that his jacket does, too, that the gun is covered again, before he looks at Sam, because Sam already knows he's an asshole, a disappointment, somebody who breaks his promises over and over again, and Sam is already so goddamn afraid of him, but he's not going to reinforce that, not if he can help it, not if there's any part of it that he can control. Not that Sam doesn't  _know_  the gun is there. Not that Sam doesn't know every fucking disappointing, horrible thing about him, but if he doesn't have to  _look_  at it, at least not right now, maybe that'll help.  
  
Maybe.  _Maybe_ , and Sam deserves a whole hell of a lot more than that, but it's all Dean has to give, and he would gladly give Sam everything.  
  
"You okay?" he says, when he can speak, even though the words are stupid and not enough, not at all.  _You okay_ , because he can't apologize to Sam, because he knows how Sam would take it, knows that Sam would only hear _you made me unhappy, you made me fuck up, look what you did to you-me-us-today_. The blue of the sky and the heat of the sunlight suddenly seem mocking, sickening, only emphasizing how much of a joke it was to even _think_  that today was a good day.  
  
There are no good days. There are moments, sometimes. Salvageable moments. Moments in which it seems as though there might be hope.  
  
He doesn't deserve any better, himself -- every mistake he has ever made echoing now in his ears like the motel door closing behind him once more; every time Sam flinches, every time Sam can't look at him, like a bullet misfired and an innocent's blood and  _all his fault_  -- but Sam does. Sam deserves everything. The best. Better than Dean, more than Dean can give.  
  
"Yeah," Sam says. "I'm okay." He says it like he's reciting a line, like the words are not his own, but he's able to say it, and that's more than they get, some days. Dean makes himself take his hand from Sam's shoulder at last, because, yeah, sometimes touching Sam helps, and other times, like when he's just fucking  _threatened_ somebody and reminded Sam exactly what he is, exactly  _who_  he is, he's got the idea that it probably really fucking does not. Together they walk to the car, Sam moving like he has to remember how to take a step each time, and such is Dean's cowardice that it's not until they're in the car once more, not  _safe_  because they are never safe, there's no such thing, but driving away, that he can make himself ask what happened, and it's not until after Sam has fallen asleep, slumped weary and still so fucking  _thin_ , still so barely  _here_ , against him, miraculously somehow still willing to  _be_  against him, to be near him, even after stuttering those awful words like Sam thought he was  _confessing_  to something and somehow that made it sting even more than if Sam's voice had been accusation-sharp, that Dean's breath hitches. It's only once, and only for a second: his throat burns and his eyes sting, but it's useless. Useless, now, after the fact, and it would have been useless if he'd been any later, too. If he'd come out and Sam had been gone. Taken.  _Stolen_ , ripped away, abducted, there are a thousand fucking words to say it and none of them come close to what it would have been, which is  _world_ -ending,  _life_ -ending,  _the_  ending.  
  
But he's good at useless, he's spent his whole life perfecting it, right, all those years of practice with Dad-- with _John_ , so he lets himself take one disgustingly shaky breath, lets himself exhale something wordless that sounds like choking, like grating metal, like his baby sliding up against a guardrail because of another fucking mistake he made.   
  
When Sam wakes, later, Dean's voice is perfectly steady, perfectly calm. "You're safe," he says, barely audible even to himself, because he swore once that he would never lie to Sam, but he needs to. He fucking needs to. For both of them. Sam needs to believe it. Sam needs fucking  _permission_  to believe it, and that's part of the problem, but whatever. Dean can give him that, at least, after everything.  
  
And it must be good enough, because Sam doesn't move away from him, doesn't cringe or flinch; Sam relaxes against him again, head against Dean's shoulder, and that's kind of funny in its own way. Dean's good at being useless, and oh, he is so fucking good at lying, and Sam's been trained (not  _broken_ ; Dean will not let himself think  _broken_  today, not yet at least, because Sam needs more from him than silence and absence and slurred apologies) to listen, to  _believe_ , and sometimes they fit together like fucking clockwork, like magic. And sometimes it's fucking amazing, and sometimes it's the worst joke Dean's ever heard, leaves his throat burning and his knuckles bruised, and sometimes all it is is enough for them to get by.  
  
Dean lies without hesitation, and Sam believes him without question, and Dean shouldn't be glad of that, but he is. He doesn't think he has the energy it would take to convince Sam if Sam asked for more, not right now, and if Sam knew that, it would only break him further.  
  
Break them both further.  
  
 _Not_  broken, he tells himself, but he's the only person he's never been able to lie to, never been able to convince, and the day glitters like glass on the road, shattered ruinous and ruined beneath his baby's tires, and there is bourbon in his duffel and Sam is sleeping beside him and their destination is some three-hundred-and-twenty-four miles ahead.  
  
He drives. He keeps going like he knows what he's doing, the same way he has all his life, and Sam breathes, even and calm and quiet and  _here_ , and Dean keeps one hand around his shoulder, keeping him close.   
  
If his other hand, locked around the steering wheel, is white with tension, if all he can hear is that motel door, if all he can think of now is the way Sam fucking  _tortured_  himself because he thought it was what Dean wanted, that doesn't matter. Sam won't know, not right now, and Dean will be better by the time he wakes up again.  
  
Three-hundred-and-twenty-four miles ahead, if they're lucky.  
  
And if the road blurs, if Dean for a moment cannot see past the memory of Sam's hands shaking on the table, it doesn't matter. If Dean crashes them at ninety miles an hour, they'll go out fast and easy.  
  
The thought is more comforting than it should be. He takes a breath. It isn't ragged. He will not think about what will happen next, and he keeps his foot steady on the gas, speedometer hovering at sixty-five.

\--  
  
end


	7. Anabasis, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, between Chapters 13 and 14: His baby was built for so much better than this.

Rain splatters against the windshield, a downpour of faerie-dimes that break apart upon impact, and Dean glares at the waterblurred taillights of the battered Ford inching along in front of them. It's not so much that he -- that  _they_  -- have somewhere to be, though they do (at the center of this storm, they will find either a statistically improbable yet perfectly natural explanation for what the television announcers have deemed a Freak Meteorological Occurrence -- and he'd wanted to kill them for that, for the way Sam flinched despite being halfway across the room, hunched over at the table with a slice of going-cold pizza in his hand because he never, ever lets anything go to waste -- or, more likely, a minor god intent on drowning the tri-state region.), as it is the knowledge that his baby was built for so much better than this, built for Dukes of Hazzard slides across her hood, kicking up dust and the ensuing ninety-mile-an-hour chases, not for getting caught in the kind of gridlock that's hell on her gas mileage while even the umbrella-wielding pedestrians on the sidewalks go faster than he does.  
  
Than  _they_  do. Because it  _is_  they, now,  _them_ , at last and maybe forever, if he's lucky. That's what he promised Sam, after all, and that's what he's going to give him, at least until Sam wants something better.  
  
Until Sam learns  _how_  to want. Which might be forever, at the rate he's going, and Dean feels a not-unfamiliar flush of guilt at that, or more precisely, at the part of himself that doesn't hate the idea, that brightens at the prospect that Sam could be his forever even if it came at such a great and terrible cost.  
  
At the moment, though, Sam is in the shotgun seat, and Dean tells himself not to hope for anything more than this, than this moment in which Sam is within reach, is curled up as he has been for the past two hours even though he's too tall for the position to be comfortable (but Sam has never had the option of comfort, Dean reminds himself again. Sam doesn't  _know_.). His legs are drawn up onto the seat (his sneakers are resting  _on_ the seat and if he were anybody else, Dean would kick his ass for that, but Sam is the exception to every fucking rule Dean has ever made and might ever make) and his arms are wrapped around his knees, like he's trying to retain what body heat he can, like he is still so cold. He might be, despite the jacket he's wearing, and the hoodie, and Dean turning up the heat three times. Dean would offer him his coffee, bought at the last gas station in an attempt to keep his own eyes from closing and keep him from driving them both off into the fucking ditch as a result, hurting Sam and hurting his baby, but even the dregs of that are cold, now, and wouldn't help. Even after the last month, Sam is still so thin, all huge haunted eyes and sharp bones that make Dean think of birds, though he hopes to God that Sam isn't that fragile.  
  
He couldn't be, not if he survived this long, back -- there.  
  
 _There_ , the mere thought of which causes Dean's stomach, and his jaw, and his hands, locked as they already are around the steering wheel, to clench. He hates feeling trapped like this. On the open road, there's always the illusion that they are leaving something behind, that if only he drives fast enough, or long enough, they will reach somewhere safe, where Sam won't look so hunted all the time, where he won't have those nightmares, where he won't flinch when Dean moves too quickly, moves without thinking. Where it will not seem that it hurts him even to breathe.  
  
Here, there is only the sound of rain, drumming slowly and inevitably like erosion itself, and the neon-ruby lights ahead of everybody who's stuck just like they are, only a little earlier. His skin itches with it. Anybody could be watching them. Anybody could be coming towards them, and there is nowhere to run, and he will not lose Sam like that, in a hail of shattered glass and bullets and blood that will be washed into the gutters by the rain, out into the salt-sea where it won't be noticed in the least.  
  
He won't lose Sam, period.  
  
And he's going to give himself a fucking heart attack if he keeps thinking like this, so he looks over at Sam, because sometimes that works. Sometimes it's enough of a reminder that he's done  _something_  right, kept at least one of his promises (and the most important one, at that).  
  
He can't make things right for Sam, can't take away what happened, but he can make damn sure it never happens again.  
  
He looks over at Sam, and Sam is in the exact same position he was in the last time Dean looked over at him, and then only out of the corner of his eye, because much as he needs,  _needs_  to know that Sam is here, that he got Sam out, he knows what the constant attention -- what  _any_  attention, some days -- does to Sam, or at least he knows what the fallout is. What it has been. What it would be.  
  
Sam is in the exact same position, except for how his arms are no longer wrapped tightly around his knees, but draped there, and his hands are tangled together only loosely, and his head is slumped against the door, against the weather-cooled glass of the window, raindrops casting sliding shadows across his face.  
  
His eyes are closed.  
  
Dean's heart stops, catches; for an instant he is terrified, is already measuring the space between the Impala's front bumper and the rear of the truck directly ahead and wondering whether he's got enough room to swerve up onto the sidewalk, wondering what the fuck Bobby can do from fucking South Dakota because, Jesus, there is nobody else to call, is screaming  _pleasepleasepleasenoIgothimoutplease_  though he doesn't utter a word and his mouth does not move in the slightest, and then he registers, beneath the line of Sam's jaw, the slow and steady rhythm of a pulse.  
  
Sam is asleep. Sam is alive. Sam is  _asleep_. Here, now, in the car with Dean, and Dean freezes at the marvel of it, at the absolute fucking  _unexpectedness_  of it, still, at the fact that it's happening, happening once more. Sam's chest rises and falls with each breath (still too visibly; he is still too goddamned  _thin_ ), and beneath the bruised color of his eyelids, his eyes flicker with dream-movements, but he isn't shaking, isn't trembling, isn't drawing in upon himself as though to hide from the contents of his nightmares because running from them has never for him been an option and all he can ever do is hope to choke himself awake or make enough noise for Dean to wake up first and wake  _him_  up (get him out once more, though it's only temporary and they both know it; when Sam closes his eyes, there is always,  _always_  the chance -- the probability, more than fifty percent, these days, more like seventy-five or eighty -- that Freak Camp and all its unspoken horrors, all of the evils written in the scars on Sam's body and exhaled in those fucking midnight sobs like drowning, will have him again, drag him back behind those doors and make him believe that he's never, ever going to be free, that Dean will never come for him) and keep them  _both_  awake until it's morning, until it's light and they can get the hell out, as though daylight ever once kept nightmares at bay.  
  
Right now, Sam is honest-to-God  _resting_. And he's not holding on to himself, not wrapping his arms around himself even in sleep as though his body is all he has to rely on, all he has in the world; he's not shaking, not biting his lips (and, fuck, that's one more thing Dean never wants to relive, waking at some unholy hour of morning to Sam shaking and crying with blood on his face because he'd bitten his lip with enough force to tear, to make it bleed, and still he hadn't woken himself up, still he was caught in some nightmare-memory), not turning his head as though in slow-motion response to invisible blows dealt by a hand long ago or mumbling words too low for Dean to make out, too low for Dean to understand, a fact for which Dean is sometimes grateful, because he's heard some of what Sam says when he's dreaming, and he's not sure how much more he could stomach.  
  
The only time Dean has ever seen Sam truly at peace, or as close to it as might be possible for his beautiful broken kid, is when he's wrapped up in Dean's arms, skinny body pressed up against Dean's own, Dean's hands running down the length of his back, so fucking careful to stay above his waist, his own hands pressed up against Dean's chest, curled against the fabric of Dean's shirt; in those moments right after he falls asleep, when his breathing evens out and he is not yet dreaming, or at least not yet dreaming of Freak Camp, maybe dreaming instead of sunlight and strawberries and huge green trees whose gnarled and beautiful branches shadow the sidewalks. This is not that -- and selfishly, Dean is grateful; selfishly he wants to be the person, the thing, that Sam trusts the most, the only one Sam trusts to keep him utterly safe, and sure, that makes him an asshole, but what else is new, he's a Winchester and with the exception of Sammy now, it tends to run in the family -- but it's the closest to peaceful Dean has ever seen in daylight before.  
  
Dean's a hunter, and a Winchester, and he's killed more evil sons of bitches than most people could ever imagine, but he didn't get much sleep last night (not that he's complaining, he would never complain, never aloud and never at all, because it's  _not Sammy's fault_  and Dean would do anything to make it better for him) and was running almost entirely on caffeine the day before and the day before that and caffeine pills make his hands shake, make him jittery, and he thinks he might be fucking allergic to something, maybe to the weather, and if anybody happened to see him maybe  _cough_  a couple of times (silently, muffled into his hand, which just as quickly slides across his face, because no way he's going to risk waking Sammy, not when Sammy wakes at anything, at voices outside their motel room or the wail of a siren in the distance or Dean's phone, set to silent, vibrating on the nightstand), that would be why.  
  
He doesn't  _do_  emotions, at least not that kind.  
  
And then traffic opens up and the car behind them honks and he gestures emphatically towards the side-view mirror with his middle finger, because if some asshole wakes Sam up because they're, like, so fucking intent on picking up their goddamn drycleaning that they can't wait for five goddamn seconds, he is going to fucking  _kill_ them. Quietly.  
  
He looks at Sam one last time (and tells himself that it will not be the last time, not the last time this ever happens), and then he eases the car forward.  
  
They've got a hundred or so miles to go before they stop for the night, and his car's built for racing, but today he's going to do the speed limit the whole way.  
  
\--  
  
end


	8. In Dreaming and Waking, by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, around Chapters 12-13: This is actually a timestamp of a timestamp (of an AU; how far does the rabbit hole go?), as it was inspired by whereupon's Anabasis. The relevant quote is at the top. I basically read those lines in parentheses and thought that that should really be its own scene. If only because washcloths are my hurt/comfort bulletproof kink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: PLEASE TAKE NOTE: the immediate opening of this timestamp is a dream-flashback to some of the worst experiences Sam had in Freak Camp. Take a moment to reflect back on the most graphic and disturbing parts of Part One, because the start of this story is going to take you right back there. If you were unable to get through those chapters...you might want to skip the entire italicized portion.
> 
> This is a gritty story, and though it has the requisite hurt/comfort, the angst level is still fairly high.

[from [Anabasis](1199108):

_(and, fuck, that's one more thing Dean never wants to relive, waking at some unholy hour of morning to Sam shaking and crying with blood on his face because he'd bitten his lip with enough force to tear, to make it bleed, and still he hadn't woken himself up, still he was caught in some nightmare-memory)_ ]

***

_Crusher’s fingers knotted tight in Sam’s hair, not leaving an ounce of slack as he dragged Sam’s face to his crotch.  “Be a sweet little cocksucker for me, Pretty Freak,” he crooned, “show me what you can do with that mouth, and I’ll put in a good word for you with Winchester.  Make sure he knows he’s getting his money’s worth.  Oh, yeah —”_

_Crusher’s cock filled his mouth, his nostrils, choking him, and Sam couldn’t move, his body limp and hands bound behind his back, unable to move an inch or pull back for a moment’s relief until Crusher let him, and he wouldn’t.  His eyes were blinded with another guard’s come, and all he could hear was Crusher’s loud, satisfied groans and murmurs as he dragged Sam’s head back and forth — and beyond that,_ no _—_

_“Yeah,” Crusher panted, “You hear who’s arrived?  That’s Winchester checking up on you now.  Bet he’ll be happy to see you like this, how I got ya all warmed up for him.  You want him to see you now, see exactly where you belong?  He’ll find it a real turn-on. I’ll call him, he’s waiting just outside the door.”_

_Sam whimpered, struggled to pull free to beg and plead_ no _, but he couldn’t move an inch, and he could hear Dean talking, animated and cheerful, on the other side of the door.  He didn’t know, and couldn’t know, no no no, please don’t come in, but Sam couldn’t say a word —_

“Sam.  _Sam!”_

Hands on his shoulders, roughly shaking, and Sam cried out once without meaning to, then sobbed, drawing his arms over his face.  “No, please don’t look —”

“Fuck,” Dean said, and hauled him up, his grip tight and implacable.  A light switched on overhead, and Sam flinched from it, eyes still squeezed shut, turning to hide his face against the headboard.  But Dean’s hand caught his chin, dragging it back.  Sam made a wretched noise of despair, something between a keen and a whimper, and Dean said, “ _Shit_ , motherfucking _shit_ ,” and let go of him.  The mattress dipped forward, and then Dean was gone, and Sam was huddled alone against the headboard, still shaking.

He couldn’t stop the noise in his throat, the sobbing or endless keen from the knowledge that Dean had _seen_ and now he was gone, of course he was gone and would never be back for him, now that he had seen how dirty and disgusting and whorish Sam had been, opening his mouth for anyone.  _Worthless, vile abomination_ —

Then all at once, Dean was _back_ , kneeling right where he had been in front of Sam, his palm once again framing Sam’s cheek with his thumb underneath Sam’s jaw, though much gentler this time.  “Hold still, Sammy,” Dean said, and then something warm and wet and soft touched Sam’s mouth.

Sam jumped, his stupid freak body betraying him and Dean both as it always would, always such a disappointment that should be gotten rid of before it hurt Dean, but Dean just tightened his grip (still gentle, though, so much kinder than Sam deserved) and said, “Shhh.”

Sam realized he was still making pathetic whimpering noises in his throat, continuously, and made an effort to shut it off, to control himself at least in this way.  Dean was still pressing the wet cloth to his mouth, wiping in gentle short motions. 

For a minute it was quiet, and then Dean said — his voice low and unexpectedly raw, almost shaking too — “Fuck.  Just, fuck it all to fucking hell.  Sam.”

Sam flinched again, tried to draw back, but Dean held him steady.  He tried to say, through the washcloth, “I’m s-s —” but Dean cut him off at once, brusquely.

“No, don’t try to talk, Sammy.  Don’t try to talk.”  The cloth didn’t stop gently cleaning Sam’s mouth, and he wondered at this, at how Dean could stand to look at him and touch him, let alone think he could be _cleaned_.  But maybe, if Dean thought so, if he thought he could do it, there might be something worthwhile left to save.  Dean knew best, after all.

Then the cloth moved, wiping over Sam’s cheeks and eyes, and at last he could blink his eyes open.  It was hard to focus and see, but after a moment he could make out the gray of Dean’s night shirt, the white cloth in his hand, spotted with blood.  Sam blinked, and touched his lip gingerly with his tongue, feeling the tender swollen cut, familiar from many interrogations when he ended up sinking his teeth into his lip.  That was what Dean had seen.

Sam lifted his eyes to him, and Dean looked wrecked, sleep-rough, his eyes deeply shadowed and jaw dark with stubble.  He looked exhausted in more ways than that, in ways Dean should never have to know, and all because of Sam.

Dean touched Sam’s lip with the cloth again, caught his eyes, and pulled him close, Sam’s face to Dean’s warm dry T-shirt.  “C’mere.”

There, once more against the safety of Dean’s chest and wrapped in his arms, Sam’s body started shaking again, and he couldn’t stop it any more than he could help the uneven breaths rasping through his lungs.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “sorry, sorry, sorry,” because he was, so fucking sorry for everything he had done to Dean, sorry for breaking the Rules (the second one Dean ever made, that Sam should never hurt himself; the third, that he should say that only _once_ per day, and whether it was yesterday or the next day, it was already too many times), and sorry for being a weak monster who hadn’t known it was better to die than to face Dean once he knew everything.

But Dean pressed his hand to the back of Sam’s head and shushed him and never let go, even when Sam started crying again and couldn’t stop for a long time.


	9. Liminal, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, between Chapters 14 and 15: Sometimes, Sam wakes before Dean.

Sometimes, Sam wakes before Dean, wakes with a start and knows instinctively that it is six a.m., that once it would be time to get up for roll call, and though he does not need to, always he looks at the clock anyway, as though for confirmation. It helps, sometimes, to remind himself where he is, to let himself imagine for one small and secret moment that he could possibly be one of those reals he reads about, who wake disoriented before their alarm goes off in the morning, who have been conditioned through something other than the knowledge that failure to get up now will mean beatings, will mean being on his knees with blood in his mouth or blood on his back, bruises and burns down his arms. Sometimes, he sleeps through the night, all the way through until his body awakens him, and when it does, he does not remember what he dreamed, if he dreamed at all, and on those days he wonders if that's what it's like to be a real, if that might be what it's like to be Dean; other times, he wakes in the middle of the night or the grey-frost hours of early morning with his throat tight and his lungs burning and his mouth aching in a way that he knows it has no reason to, not anymore, though that does not lessen the ache, and some of  _those_  times, when he is lucky, he falls asleep again, with Dean's arms around him and Dean's legs tangled around his own and Dean's voice, rough with sleep and rough with unwarranted grief, in his ear, making promises that he would never believe if they came from anyone else.  
  
Either way, whether he remembers his dreams or not, whether he falls asleep with Dean wrapped contentedly around him or with Dean holding on to him like he is the only thing in Dean's world, too, the days when he wakes up before Dean are some of the best. Even asleep, Dean holds him, arms loose but heart still so close, and sometimes Sam lets himself duck his head a little, lean in and listen, listen to Dean's heart beating and Dean's breath slow and even, these things that he had never let himself dream of hearing but which are, for a few moments, his and his alone.  
  
Sometimes, Sam is content to stay there, head against Dean's shoulder or against his chest; sometimes he is content (more than content,  _elated_ ) to rest there, quiet, watching the angles of Dean's face, the way the lines of exhaustion and hurt that so often shadow his days are smoothed out in the morning-soft light. Dean is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and he could look at him forever, if only he were allowed. And sometimes he thinks that he will, and he tries, he lets himself watch Dean, the way his hair spikes in all directions against the pillow, the way his eyelashes shadow the skin beneath his eyes like the promise of storms, until Dean stirs, until his breath catches and his eyes open and he looks at Sam, and sometimes, Sam is even brave enough to keep looking, even then, to smile at Dean and to watch Dean smile back, slow and sleep-lazy.  
  
Other times, Sam gets out of bed before Dean awakens. He's good at doing it without waking Dean, without disturbing him at all; he slips out from Dean's arms and rolls neatly to the edge of the mattress, lets his feet touch the carpet for a second, marvels at the soft texture, the lack of concrete against his bare feet, before he gets up. He goes to the window, then, careful to walk slowly, because Dean will wake at the smallest of noises and Dean should not have to wake up once more because of Sam, because of a monster who cannot control even his footfalls, and he takes a deep breath, and he lets himself push aside the curtain, only a few inches, but more than a monster deserves, enough to allow him to look out onto the real world, to see telephone wires and black-winged birds and cars (none of which are as beautiful as Dean's, sleek gleaming metal) and trees, sometimes, green and heavy-branched or spindly-white, and beyond all of that, he sees the sky, brilliant no matter the weather, whether it's grey with clouds and the windowpane is splashed with rain or it's orange and pink and faded rust, dull blue at the edges where night is still falling away.  
  
He lets himself look, but only for a few moments; he lets himself breathe, and then, just as slowly as he crossed the room before, he crosses it again, and he slips back into Dean's bed, and he fits himself against Dean's body, and Dean's arms fit around him once more as though Sam never left, and Dean does not wake, as though he is so used to Sam being there that it seems only natural for him to return, and Sam lets himself close his eyes, and he lets himself fall back asleep (it's easier now than it was before, at the beginning, those first weeks), and those times, when he dreams, his dreams are not nightmares, and when he wakes once more, it's to Dean's hands smoothing through his hair, or Dean's breath against his ear as Dean speaks his name soft and quiet and kind, or, on very good days, Dean's mouth brushing against his, the press of Dean's lips, however brief, better than any sunrise, any unbound bird silhouetted against the sky.  
  
Sometimes, Dean tells him that it will be like this always, that this will never end, that Sam will never have to wake up alone, wake up without him, and every day, Sam can believe him a little more.  
  
\--  
  
end


	10. Resurgam, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, between Chapters 14-15: He's allowed to be here, he reminds himself.

The sunlight slanting in through the half-closed blinds of the diner window illuminates the flecks of dust like gold floating in the air and falls in skewed angles across Dean's face. It's still an effort not to look away, to not pretend (as though he could ever pass, could ever fool any real, as though he could ever fool  _Dean_ ) to have been doing anything other than staring, when Dean raises his head, but not as much as it used to be.   
  
He's allowed to be here, he reminds himself. And he is allowed to look at Dean; he doesn't have to drop his gaze when any rea--when any _body_  looks at him.   
  
It still hurts to hold it, though, to fight against the years and years of experience that tell him that any second now, he's going to be sprawled face-first in the dirt, or on his back on the concrete with his ears ringing, and the blood dripping from his nose or his mouth will be only the first of the punishments he receives for having dared to disrespect a real (a guard, he substitutes, catching himself a fraction of a second too late, though he's not sure he understands the reason for that particular distinction, even though Dean has told him so many times that  _he_ is real, too), for having sullied them with his filthy,  _sick_  gaze.   
  
( _Think the monster wants you, he hears, think somebody should give the monster what it wants, huh? Down on your knees, freak,_  but it's only an echo, only a memory, and it cannot hurt him, not if he doesn't let it, not if he doesn't  _ask_.)  
  
Dean meets his eyes, and smiles, eyes crinkling in the way that means that it's genuine, that he's not making himself do it for Sam and Sam alone, and Sam lets out a breath. It's shakier than Dean will like, but if Dean notices, he doesn't say anything. Instead, he reaches for another French fry doused with ketchup and glistening faintly with salt and grease, and his mouth is full when he asks, "How's your food?"  
  
Sam will never get over that, how easily Dean can break such basic rules without even seeming to think about it, as though he has no fear of punishment, no fear at all. He reminds himself that Dean has never  _had_  to think about it, because he's a real, and a hunter, and a _Winchester_ on top of that. Rules don't apply to people like him (not that there  _are_  any other people like him), not the way they do to monsters. To Sam.  
  
"It's good," Sam says, and spears another tomato slice to prove it, because it's easy to lie with words, to recite what he's practiced, and this is not a lie. He doesn't lie, not to Dean. Dean wants him to tell the truth, always, even when it's something Sam knows Dean won't want to hear, and Sam's getting better at that. Most of the time, he doesn't even cringe anymore as he waits for Dean's reaction.  
  
"Yeah?" Dean says, wiping his hands on a paper napkin from the fingerprint-smudged dispenser at the end of the table, and leans in. It's not an intimidation tactic. It  _isn't_ , Sam tells himself firmly. It's one of the ways in which Dean expresses interest, or intimacy, or sometimes both, and he likes it when Dean is close to him, when Dean touches him, when Dean lets Sam touch  _him_.  
  
"Yeah," Sam says, not as casually as he would have liked, as he was trying for, but maybe it will be close enough. Maybe it will count that he tried. It usually does, with Dean. "It's the best salad I've had all week." He knows Dean doesn't understand,  _can't_  understand, what it is to be able to walk into a restaurant like this and be given a  _menu_  and to be able to choose  _anything he wants_  from it, and to be able to eat as much of it as he wants, and all without being expected to do anything in return, anything other than try his best to be the kind of monster Dean deserves.   
  
 _Overwhelming_  is an understatement.  
  
Dean thinks he knows, but he will never be able to, and Sam wouldn't change that for anything. Dean shouldn't ever have to know. Dean doesn't deserve to know, not the way Sam does.  
  
"Awesome," Dean says. "And you know, you can get whatever you want, Sam. You don't gotta get the same damn thing ever time. I mean, you can if you want to, that's cool, but--"  
  
"But if I wanna get a burger, or if I wanna eat nothing but pie, I can," Sam says. "I remember. You've told me six times since Tuesday." Which is dangerous to say, or  _would_  be dangerous to say if he were talking to anyone but Dean, because it sounds like disrespect, like thinking he's somebody who knows something, like he's a  _person_ , and he's a little surprised he managed to get the words out without choking.  
  
Of course, considering that he's talking to Dean, it's the  _six times since Tuesday_  part that's dangerous, because there's always the chance that Dean will interpret it as Sam keeping track of orders, as Sam thinking that Dean's _giving_  him orders, instead of what it really is, which is that Sam pays attention to everything Dean says, and not out of habit, nor out of fear.  
  
That he remembers the numbers in addition to the words Dean used, though,  _is_  out of habit, the information catalogued instinctively because knowing it will probably keep him alive someday, alive for Dean, even if he doesn't yet know how. There are always tests.  
  
No, he amends, there  _were_  always tests. Dean wouldn't like it if he used the present tense.  
  
"Good," Dean says, and without warning, reaches for his glass of soda. Sam  _knows_  that's what he's reaching for, knows that Dean would never, ever lunge at  _him_  like that (and Dean isn't lunging, he's  _reaching_ , so there's no logical  _reason_  for Sam to be panicking, what is wrong with him, other than the obvious: he's a fucking  _monster_ , a filthy cocksucking whore who should be locked up where he can't hurt anybody, piece of trash that deserve to be punished, be broken, deserves nothing so good as Dean and shut up shut up shut up none of that's true, Dean says, but he doesn't know and--), but he already feels himself flinching, shoving his body back against the tape-patched vinyl of the booth (and a distant part of him notes what he's doing and cringes, because it's one thing to flinch, to demonstrate fear and submission, his knowledge of his  _place_ , and another to try to remove himself from striking range, and he's going to  _pay_  for that) and watching Dean's eyes widening in response. In  _horror_.  
  
 _Fuck_. Today had been going so well, too, and so really Sam should have known this would happen. He fucks up, he  _always_  fucks up, because he's a monster and that's what monsters do, when they're not hurting people, and that's why they're kept away from people, away from  _reals_ \--  
  
Dean freezes, turns his hands palms out. Empty, like surrender. Not a threat. Like he thinks he needs to  _remind_ Sam, and apparently he does, and Sam tastes bile, feels his cheeks burn. "Sorry," Dean says, and he is so fucking pale, and  _Sam_  did that to him, to the one real who has ever been good to him, been  _kind_  to him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to--" And that is so sickeningly wrong; Sam should be the one apologizing. He  _needs_  to. The apology's hot on his tongue, because as soon as he says it, Dean will understand that Sam knows it's his own fault, and then maybe Dean won't be mad at him, but he  _can't_  say it, because Dean doesn't like it when he apologizes, and he already used up his apology for today and it's not two o'clock yet, there are so many chances left for him to fuck up and how could he be so  _stupid_.   
  
His fingernails dig into his palms, even as he warns himself not to draw blood this time. He stares down at his plate, at the impossibly green leaves and bright red tomatoes and the unreal orange of the carrots, and feels his stomach curling in upon itself. He can't breathe. He can't fucking  _breathe_ , and he  _knows_  this is a panic attack, but _knowing_  doesn't make it any better. Knowing doesn't make his lungs start to work again, doesn't turn his ribcage back to bone, from the bands of iron and steel used to restrain monsters like him.  
  
"Sam," Dean says. "Look at me." His voice is quiet, and tired, and sad, but the words are unmistakably an order.  
  
He doesn't like to give Sam orders, and that alone would have made Sam obey, even if he weren't so stupidly grateful for the order itself, even if monsters obeying the orders of reals  _weren't_  the way things were meant to be. Dean should never have to do things he doesn't want to, things that make him unhappy, and  _especially_  not for Sam, so when he does them anyway, Sam should do  _exactly_  what he wants, exactly what Dean needs so that he won't have to worry about Sam anymore and can go back to being happy like he was before.   
  
Which is why Sam feels even worse about how he actually feels  _better_ , better for Dean's disappointment and reluctance, better for his unhappiness, because now Sam knows exactly what he has to do to please Dean, and Dean  _knows_  that, he knows that's how this works, and that's why he said it, that's the  _only_  reason he said it. Because he cares that fucking  _much_  about Sam, and Sam still doesn't know  _why_.  
  
It's not a test, he reminds himself. Dean cares about him, and maybe someday he  _will_  understand why, but maybe it's not for monsters  _to_  understand, and that's okay, too.  
  
"It's okay," Dean says, echo of Sam's thoughts that makes Sam think for a moment that he'd spoken aloud (out of control, damaged, _dangerous_ ), but Dean looks so much older than he did five minutes ago, than he did before Sam overreacted, before Sam  _snapped_  the way that all monsters do, and when he repeats himself, Sam understands that he hadn't spoken aloud after all; if he had, Dean would have focused on that, would have told him once more that he is  _not_  a monster, and would have maybe taken his hand, slowly and gently, and held it until Sam's own stopped trembling. "It's okay," Dean says again, neatly circumventing Sam's apology, because Sam doesn't need to apologize if he's already been forgiven, and reassuring the both of them.  
  
Dean never used to do that. He never used to know how. He learned that for Sam, who suddenly wants nothing more to make himself as small as possible, and maybe even more than that, to get the fuck out of here. Nobody noticed, he tells himself, nobody saw him flinch and recognized it for what it was, the reaction of a  _monster_ ; the black vans with the shackles to keep him on the floor where he belongs are not on their way, and even if they are, he's Dean's, now. Nobody can take him away, not until Dean wants them to.  
  
"Okay," Sam says, his voice a low and rasping thing. Like he's trying hard not to cry. Which maybe he is, but he's not going to think about that, because thinking about it will increase the likelihood that he will, and that  _will_ attract attention, and worst of all, it will prove to Dean that Sam's weak, that he's stupid, that Dean has wasted his time trying to teach a monster, because clearly Sam hasn't learned one fucking thing.   
  
Except, apparently, that he's allowed to cry, so much that he'll let himself do it in public, that he'll fall apart outside of the quiet-dark safety of the motel room and Dean's arms. Maybe Dean will find that funny enough to not be angry about the rest of it, but Sam doubts it.   
  
Dean gets to his feet, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and tossing bills down onto the table without even checking their denominations, and he hasn't even  _finished_  his fries, and Sam's salad is only half-eaten, and, fuck, Sam knows Dean doesn't have money for this, which would make him sick with guilt if he weren't guiltsick already on account of the food rule, the rule that says one does not throw food away, because there is never enough of it to begin with and one never knows when the next meal will be.   
  
"Come on," Dean says, and he sounds like he usually does, like he does when Sam doesn't make mistakes, like he does when he comes back from bars and smiles to see Sam listening to music, like he does when he's telling Sam about where they'll go next, what they'll see, and Sam wonders how much that costs him. Sam's not the only one who pretends, and he marvels at the idea that Dean is willing to pretend for  _him_. "The food here sucks anyway, huh? We'll hit the road for a couple hours, maybe pick something up later if we're hungry."   
  
"Okay," Sam says,  _makes_  himself say (he's said so much more, done so much more, he can do this for Dean, he  _can_ ), and gets to his feet. He tugs his sleeves down over his knuckles, because if by some miracle the reals haven't noticed that he's not like them, the scars spiraling upwards from his wrists will be a dead giveaway, and he will not cause Dean any more trouble today, not if he can help it.  
  
He keeps his head down as they walk out of the restaurant, until they're out in the parking lot, until he can force air back into his lungs, air that smells of salt and sunshine, and then he lets himself slip his hand into Dean's, because Dean has never turned him away before when he's tried like this, and he doesn't this time, either. Dean grips Sam's hand in return, his thumb rubbing small circles over Sam's knuckles, until they reach Dean's car, and by then Sam's breathing is steady enough that he can look at Dean over the shiny black roof, and can even manage a weak smile as he says, "I think I'm sick of salad."  
  
"Tell me about it," Dean says, which Sam knows is slang; it's real, it's  _Dean_ , and means not that Dean is demanding information (and he will not forget the expression on Dean's face before, when he didn't understand, that look of horror and dismay like Dean was realizing anew what a bad choice he'd made in picking out  _Sam_ ), but that he's expressing sympathy, empathy, understanding. He's talking to Sam like he's a real, because he believes that Sam  _is_.  
  
And it means that they're the  _same_  in this, it means that Dean knows they're both so fucking tired of this, and it means that Dean is promising that neither of them is going to give up. Not yet.  
  
As Dean starts the engine, they close their doors in unison, and Sam lets himself imagine for a moment that there is meaning in that sound, too, something for which a word does not exist, but something that is nonetheless at once weightless and grounding, something that turns his monster-heart into something better, something braver, and when he looks over at Dean, he can almost believe that Dean hears the same thing.  
  
\--  
  
end


	11. Echo, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, between Chapters 14 and 15: The list of things Dean has never done might well be endless.

Dean has never in his life held a guitar, much less played one, but though he might not know the names of the chords that make up the opening to "Ramble On," he has heard them enough times that he could recognize the song beneath the noise of a barroom rabble, or carried by radio waves faded with distance and static interference, or in a dream. He could, and he has, more than once, which is why he realizes instantly that something's wrong with his tape, that maybe it's worn through at last.  
  
It's not like he hasn't played it enough to justify that, not like this should come as a surprise, but he still feels something dangerously like a pang of loss at the idea.  
  
John had given him that tape, before. It had  _been_  John's, had been John's for years, since before Mom died and the whole world changed and it's not that he remembers  _everything_  from back then, because he was four goddamn years old, and who would, right? But he remembers some things. He remembers Mom, a little, sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window and falling across her hair, and the way she smiled at him as she poured him a glass of apple juice, and the way she kept her voice bright in a way that seemed only like his mom keeping him safe, and as long as his mom was smiling, he could smile, too, because things were gonna be okay, no matter where Dad was.  
  
And then he grew up, and now he recognizes it for what it was, because he hears the same thing in his own voice, sometimes, when he's talking to Sammy, telling him everything's gonna be okay, or telling him something else entirely, something totally fucking random just to get his mind somewhere else, get him to focus on something other than what happened to him, all the times Dean let him down, all the times Dean wasn't there.  
  
But maybe that's okay, too, because it's not like Dean's meant to be holding onto things from that life, anyway, life with John. Life on the road with his dad, who was half of Dean's world and who cut him off entirely like the waste of time and space and training that he  _is_ , and so it's easier for Dean to cut him off, too, cut off everything that reminds him of how things were, when they were easy, when he was too fucking  _stupid_  to see them for what they really were. Cut them off now entirely, like a sick limb, something diseased -- an idea which itself is easier to repeat like a mantra than to actually believe, especially on those bad days when Sam hardly speaks, when he can hardly make himself look at Dean, when he just sits there, hunching in on himself with his arms crossed tightly across his chest as though the whole world is edged with razors, as though he's afraid that if he moves, he'll wake up and find himself back in Freak Camp, Dean's promises fallen away and forgotten like the words of the still and quiet dead.  
  
Those days, Dean almost wishes that John were here, doing this with him, because his dad is brave and strong in all the ways that sometimes Dean can't even pretend to be.  
  
Or his dad  _used_  to be, when Dean was a kid. Before he grew up and realized that his dad is a person just like everybody else, that John is as fucked up as anybody, and maybe, very probably, more so. If John were here, Sam wouldn't be, and Dean will never regret making the decision that he did.  _Ever._  
  
But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, sometimes. And so he reaches to eject the tape, because listening to the worn-out, dying version of something that was once vivid and warm and  _comforting_  is too much of a painfully fucking obvious metaphor at the moment--  
  
And then he stops, one hand steady on the wheel as always, because the day it isn't is maybe the day he dies, which isn't as important as the fact that it would also be the day Sam dies, because Sam is with here with him now (and forever, he adds, and on days like this with the sun high and gleaming across the hood and the fields streaming past them out to the horizon, it's something he can believe), and one hand outstretched. Not noticeably, for which he's glad, because it means that he can retract it without drawing Sam's attention.  
  
Because he finally recognizes the sound for what it is, not quite an echo, and he tells himself that he should have known, should have recognized it instantly (and he will, the next time, if there is a next time, because he could never, ever forget this, this revelation that is elation, that is unbelievable, that is everything), though there's no way that he could have, because this is the first time he's ever heard it.  
  
The first time it's ever happened, as far as he knows.  
  
Sam is humming along with the music. Just barely, faintly enough for Dean to have mistaken it momentarily for an artifact of the tape's degradation, but  _humming_ , all the same.  
  
Humming, and it sounds, in its own quiet, slightly off-key way, like joy.  
  
Dean doesn't dare speak; if he did, Sam would stop, even if only to listen to him, to give Dean his full attention, as though Dean is all that matters in his world, in  _the_  world (and maybe it says something that those are pretty much interchangeable to Dean himself, Sam's world and the world,  _Sam_  and the world, and maybe it doesn't). All Dean can do is keep driving, and when Sam turns to look at him a second later, to look at him with that smile that is still so shy but that is a smile all the same, a flash of teeth bright as dawn, tinder sparking in the pit of Dean's stomach, Dean grins back, so hard that it hurts.  
  
Sam colors a little at that, like he's surprised, but he doesn't stop, does not fall silent, and the color looks good on him. He's still too pale, like maybe everything that has happened to him, everything that he has survived, has given him a permanent pallor, a layer of ash, delicate and friable, just below his skin, but tinged with heat, the faintest red, now, that isn't so noticeable, and for a heartbeat, maybe two, it doesn't seem quite so permanent, either.  
  
The list of things Dean has never done might well be endless; the list of things he has done is much shorter, and half of the entries upon it that he does remember are sour with regret, a shot taken too late, a different type of shot taken too soon. There's another list, too, a list that keeps him up even more, itches beneath his skin and burns behind his eyes, but that one's only got two entries:  _what if I hadn't been in time_ , and  _why didn't I get there sooner_ , and he doesn't let himself think about that one when Sam's around, when Sam's awake.  
  
But today they are driving, and ghosts of might-have-beens, should-have-beens, never-weres, have no power during minutes like this one, with the sky heat-shimmering as blue and deep as the sea, and all around them the fields are rich with gold, stalks the color of the sun, and no matter what happens next, no matter how it ends, it will have been, Dean decides, a very good day.  
  
\--  
  
end


	12. Wolves, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, between Chapters 17-18: Dean trusts him not to break anything, but he broke Dean, and that is everything.

It sounds like nothing, when Dean closes the door; it sounds like absolutely nothing at all and like everything at once, like the world falling in upon itself, crumbling soundless and instant, and then the chambered-round click of the latch and there is only the peeling-painted wood, only the door with the framed fire escape route like it was drawn in ballpoint pen on a diner napkin, like one of Dean's sketched-out coffee-smeared maps,  _me and this fuckin' alligator, man, and Da-Bobby the whole goddamn way_ , or the first move of the game he said they didn't have to call hangman no matter what the other reals said, they could call it reassembly or something, putting some dude to rest. Smudge of lemon-lime highlighter over somebody's scrawled in-case-of-emergency YOU ARE HERE, and Dean is not, and Sam is, once more, all alone, all alone, all alone.  
  
No, he's not. Dean is coming back. He's alone right now, but only because Dean trusts him, only because Dean believes, Dean  _knows_ , that he can be left on his own, that he will not break, will not break himself or anything else, the way that all freaks do, spreading death and damnation with their touch no matter how human they might appear.  
  
Dean trusts him not to break anything, but he broke  _Dean_ , and that is  _everything_ , zero-sum, endgame. He made that look slide across Dean's face, made his mouth go tight like breathing past a cracked rib, made his eyes go dim and jaded, like seventy-two hours with no sleep and bruises colored like seaglass or the dusty broken once-green bottles that litter the parking lot weaving themselves smudged around the bones of his spine. He made that look slide across Dean's face and sometimes he does that and that's all it is, a slide, a shadow, flash and gone; Dean breathes in like a flinch and then forces his mouth up and says without looking at Sam, "Hey, you never had banana cream pie, huh? Bet we can fix that in less than ten minutes," or "Dude, we gotta get us some fireworks. It's gonna be like, like, you know, all those times I told you about torching some sucker's bones, except without some jackass reject from Scooby Doo going all attention wh-wanting on our asses, you're gonna love it, you're gonna look so fuckin' hot, you know that thing about wishing on falling stars, no, 'course not, but I'll tell you, it'll be awesome."  
  
Sometimes. When Sam is good, when Sam is lucky. When Sam remembers in time and keeps himself from hurting Dean even more, from hurting past healing the only real who has ever loved him, the only one who has ever wanted him for more than just his hands or his mouth or the way patterns make his freak brain light up bright as a broken-bone snap, the only  _person_  in his whole world. Sometimes, Dean can pretend, for him, and that means he can pretend for Dean, and if they pretend enough for each other, sometimes it's almost like the real thing and like Sam never fucked up this time in the first place and they'd been planning all day anyway to go to the park and crash beneath the trees or catch that movie about whales or for Dean to spill chocolate ice cream on his flannel in an attempt to lick vanilla from the side of Sam's mouth, clumsy scapegrace smile as his hands curl around Sam's.  _Sometimes_.  
  
 _Other_  times, when Sam can't help but let his freak nature show -- when he can't help but hurt Dean even though he never means to at all, even though he'd sooner slit his wrists with the knives Dean doesn't hide but that freaks are not meant to touch and so Sam has not yet; would sooner walk to the nearest silt-brown river, real-blue sneakers slipping across the rocks, and hold his breath for as long as it took, than make Dean unhappy --  _those_ times, they both pay for it.  
  
It should be Sam alone, Sam left hurting, maybe bleeding on the bathroom floor, where he can clean it up without leaving stains, or out in the parking lot, beneath that all-seeing sky and where the weather will do the job if he cannot, but it  _isn't_ , because it's never Sam alone anymore, not like that. Not like this. It's never Sam alone at _all_ : Sam smiles, and Dean smiles back; Dean laughs loud, unruly and unmanageable and doesn't quiet down no matter how many times the person at the circulation desk says, "Sir,  _please_ ," and even though it still makes Sam nervous to have someone look at them like that, he cannot be afraid just then, and he feels something spark bright and dangerous in his own stomach, feels something unbelievable and enormous catch in his throat, briar-scratch of laughter he is only beginning to be able to let out.  
  
 _Other_  times Sam says something without thinking, stupid fucked-up monster reaction, or Sam says something that he thinks Dean will want to hear and he guesses wrong, guesses like the stupid whore he is, and it's the way Dean reacts that cuts him, the way Dean tries to make his face blank for Sam's sake, blank like he doesn't want Sam to know how badly he's hurt, and fails completely. ("You've got a hell of a poker face, kiddo," Dean told him once. "Seriously, you ever decide you wanna go to Vegas, we'd clean  _up_  prob'ly end up owning the whole goddamn city, right down to those weirdo dudes with the Fabio hair and the creepy albino tigers.") Sam could teach him how to do it better, how to do it right, hide each and every one of his tells, but he  _won't_ , because that isn't his place, isn't his place to teach a  _real_ , and because Dean thinks he's doing it right anyway, and because if Sam hurts him, if Sam hurts him so much that Dean can't help but show it no matter how hard he tries, then Sam deserves to see every second of it, for every instant of grief and anger, horror-desperation-sorrow, to sting his eyes like flashpoint corona, sear his skin like the sick numb seep of winter, frostbite poison, settle in his stomach like jizz and salt and stale bread and meat gone off two days before, his heart an anvil and his wrists bound limp and useless with regret and  _what did I do, what_  was  _it, pleasepleaseplease Dean please_.  
  
All this time, all of this time, so  _many_  times that he's fucked up now, so many times that Dean's gone silent as the ones that learned not to fight, guards' hands in their hair as they let themselves be dragged along, pliable and broken; that he's paled, skin like fresh blood in old monster-grimed snow; that he's stumbled to a stop or stuttered to a halt and pulled  _back_ , like the thought of even looking at Sam is unbearable; so many times now has Dean swallowed hard, turned away and reached for his jacket, his keys, said something like, "It's okay, Sammy," which it clearly wasn't,  _isn't_ , or, "I'll be back, don't go anywhere. Unless, unless you want to, I got, if you want, I got cash, we should," awkward ramble that stopped only when Sam managed to speak at last himself, to say  _no_  or  _I'll be here_ , those three words instead of  _I'll be here forever, I'll be here until you tell me to leave, I'll go wherever you are, Dean, as long as you want me there, as long as you'll let me_ , because when Dean looks like _that_ , when Dean looks like he's been kicked hard in the stomach, fingers mashed into the concrete like stubbed-out cigarettes by steel-toed boots, blood sour and sharp in his mouth and nose, queasy and drowning and unable to spit it out because  _monsters should not make more messes than they already are_ , Sam knows that he won't want to hear it.  
  
That's why he leaves, after all. That's why he leaves, and it's why he left  _this_  time, too, and someday, maybe, Sam will not be such a fucking  _stupid_  monster that he makes his real  _leave_  rather than having to look at him, his real who is still so good as to not throw  _Sam_  out, even though that's the way it should go, Sam the intruder, Sam the freak, Sam the one who does not deserve to be here, in this room with the beautiful paintings and the huge soft beds, the water that runs hot or cold at his whim, the lamps that will throw soft light across the room, should he want it, the Bible in the bedside table that he can read without anybody telling him to stop because books are for reals and a monster should not  _think_  about God, much less sully the gilt-edged pages of that book with his touch, should not read those words meant for reals, words like  _truth salvation heaven_.  
  
Dean lets him stay, but even though Sam never leaves the room, he knows exactly where Dean goes. The scent comes in on the night, caught up in the air around Dean as he moves, whirlwind making Sam's own head spin. It's on Dean's jacket almost all the time, like the leather's been soaked it in for years, forgotten on some coathook in a Nebraskan roadhouse and only just now remembered, one generation down. Sam knows where he goes, scent even stronger nights like this, like these, and he doesn't mind it (not that it is his to mind, not that he minds anything Dean does, or anything that Dean might ever do, and not just because he's a freak, but because it's  _Dean_ ); he doesn't blame Dean for wanting to get out, for wanting to spend time with reals, for wanting to think about something other than the broken, damaged, pathetic wreck of a monster waiting desperately for him back at the motel. He doesn't blame Dean for not wanting to think very much at all, either, even though he wishes that Dean would let him come with just to have his back the way he does whenever they are together, whenever Dean can stand to be in the company of a freak, just in case something happens, so that Sam can be there between the knife and Dean's throat or the concrete and Dean's skull, can take the blow that Dean might not see coming and know that at least for once he made himself useful, at least for once he made  _something_  up to Dean.  
  
He wishes, but he never says it aloud, because to do so would imply that he thinks Dean can't take care of himself, and sure, Dean has said,  _keeps_  saying, that he is happier with Sam around, safer with Sam watching his back, Sam at his side, riding shotgun or his hand wrapped up in Dean's own callused one, but when Sam's the one who makes him leave, when Sam's the one he's  _running_  from--  
  
Even if he were real, even if he were human, he doesn't think he could ever make himself be so bold, ask such a huge and impossible favor.  
  
He doesn't think Dean will smell like sex tonight, at least, he reassures himself, drawing his knees up to his chest as he inches backwards so that his back will be to the headboard, pillows shoved aside so that his spine presses up against the wood. He'd prefer the floor, the small space between the bed and the bathroom wall, but Dean found him there once, in some other version of this room, the same but for the paintings and the neon-bright view from the window, and the look on his face was somehow even worse then, because he didn't even try to hide it, just slumped against the wall and slid down slowly until he was sitting crosswise from Sam, his own knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them, and though he smelled of cigarettes and spilled beer, his eyes were blurred more with exhaustion than with anything else, Sam had thought, and there was a bruise reddening high on his cheekbone and blood streaking his forehead, and he was hurt because of  _Sam_ , and maybe now so was someone else, though Sam knows that they would have had it coming or else Dean wouldn't have fought them. And they'd both sat there without speaking, because Dean had come back and that was everything, that was enough, even if Dean hated him for it, and eventually Dean's eyes had closed and he'd started to slip sideways towards the floor, carpet the color of speckled eggs, and he didn't protest when Sam let himself catch him, draw him down easy so that his head rested on Sam's shoulder, the back of his neck bare beneath Sam's gaze, vulnerable enough that Sam's breath had caught, and they had stayed that way until morning, Dean looking lost for only a second as he woke in the dawn-thin light, before he blinked up at Sam.  
  
Sam doesn't think that he'll smell like sex tonight, because Dean kissed him this morning, and after lunch, and because when they had to stop so that Dean could put more gas into his car, Sam had been brave enough to get out and stand beside him at the pumps (the sunglasses helped, made him braver, his eyes and all their monster secrets, monster-tells, hidden, and he thinks Dean knows that, but it hadn't seemed to matter), and as the numbers on the machine went up, Dean had slipped his hand around Sam's belt, tugging him gently closer, and when Sam, encouraged, had been even  _more_  brave and had leaned in, ducking his head ever so slightly to touch his mouth to the side of Dean's neck, Dean's grip had tightened and neither of them had noticed when the pump clunked to a stop. It hadn't been until they'd broken apart by mutual need for oxygen, and the mutual knowledge that it was only a temporary separation, and Sam had managed to drag his gaze away from the flush on Dean's face and the slow smoke-heat of his eyes, his mouth swollen the color of hunter's arson, all of which made Sam's mouth go dry, that either of them had noticed the woman with the hair streaked like denim, staring at them from the curb outside of the Gas n' Go building itself. "When I was a girl, we called that 'necking,'" she called when they both looked over, her voice scratched and wrinkled and raw, as she leaned over her walker, one hand lifted to shade her eyes, even though she wore sunglasses like the people in Dean's movies do, _aviators_  though the people who wear them do not fly. "I don't suppose you still call it the same thing?"  
  
"Yes ma'am," Dean had called back, and grinned, flash of teeth and his tongue swiping across his lower lip as though to recall the pressure and taste of Sam against him, and it had taken Sam a moment to process the _ma'am_ , because though Dean's voice was just as rich with amusement as hers had been, his tone was a slow cavalier drawl that made Sam want to tug him back inside the Impala, into the backseat, made Sam wish Dean would kiss him again, and  _lower_ ; made Sam wish that Dean would let him go to his knees, unzip Dean's jeans and see if he would make that same beautiful satisfied noise with Sam's mouth around him. Dean had been  _happy_ , then, and because of Sam, and on nights after days like that,  _most_  nights, no matter how much Sam fucks up, Dean doesn't come back to him smelling like sex, like women or men, both or either, his lips bruised like he's been kissing people who are not Sam, or fighting them. On nights after days like that, like  _this_ , Sam likes to think, likes to let himself think (when he can), he means enough to Dean that Dean is willing to give him a little while longer to prove himself, before getting what he wants from another real.  
  
He  _won't_ , Sam tells himself, and tightens his arms around his knees, seams of his jeans digging through the real-soft flannel. Dean won't smell like sex. He'll drink, and he'll talk to people who aren't Sam, people who are _people_ , who won't make him sad, and eventually when he doesn't remember what Sam did to hurt him, or when he doesn't remember that Sam is a monster who will always eventually hurt him again no matter how hard he tries not to, no matter how much Sam would rather die than ever do that again, Dean will get back into his car and he'll drive back to the motel parking lot and maybe fumble with the keys for a second, a minute, maybe two, but then he'll come back  _inside_  and Sam will  _see_  him, he'll come  _back_. And he will take off his jacket and loosen the laces of his boots, unless he doesn't, unless he lets Sam help him the way he does more often these days, in which case he'll rest a hand on Sam's shoulder the whole time as though for balance, as though in  _trust_ , and then he'll sprawl out next to Sam in the bed he'll still let them share, his face mashed into the pillows Sam pushed away, and he will not flinch away when Sam lets himself ease closer, slowly, until he's close enough to rest a hand on Dean's shoulder, or on his back, where his t-shirt always rides up, unraveling hem exposing skin and the wicked end of a scar; he'll sprawl out next to Sam, or he'll make his way carefully to the bed without Sam's help at all, moving like he's concussed, like he's seeing spangles already, the fireworks he mentioned, and the room might eclipse if he moves too fast, and he'll reach for Sam and tug him closer, mouth colliding with Sam's forehead when he tries to kiss him, and hand tangling in Sam's hair.   
  
He'll taste like what Sam knows is whiskey, or tequila, or gin, though Sam has never tasted any of those himself but on Dean's tongue, in Dean's mouth, and his kiss will be sloppy and wet and he'll sigh when it's over, will sigh and smile crooked but genuine at Sam before rolling over to bat at the lamp until the lights go out, or maybe he'll come back and his words will drag but he'll fish his flask out of his jacket anyway, and his voice will be too loud and his eyes will not be focused, no matter how much he looks at Sam, how much and how hard he looks at Sam like Sam is his anchor, the only thing keeping him grounded in this world. He'll crash graceless, reckless, loose-limbed and beautiful, beside Sam on the bed, and he'll talk about the things he never talks about in the morning, talk about his dad, tell stories like he used to when he would visit Sam at camp, except in these ones, his dad will not be a hero, and he will make promises, scary secret deadly promises, life-ending ones, or life-beginning. He will hold his lighter in his hand, flick it occasionally, and when it sparks he will stare at the flame and Sam will watch it reflected in his eyes, and wonder, and will not breathe until the fire is out, the lighter is closed once more. Eventually the flask will slip from Dean's hand and his eyes will slip shut until he is snoring into Sam's side, or in Sam's lap, and Sam will pry the lighter out of his sleep-loosened grip and set it on the nightstand, or slip it back into his pocket so that Dean won't have to ask, and he will not sleep. He will keep watch for him, will keep him safe the way Dean wants to believe that his dad always did, the way Sam wants to believe that John Winchester always did, and when Dean wakes in late morning he will want only coffee, black as sin and demon-eyes, and he will hold a hand across his eyes, and he will speak unnecessary apologies like confessions, in whispers like ash, his voice scraping like gravel beneath the Impala's tires.  
  
There is a fourth possibility, Sam knows. There is always a fourth possibility, and he wonders if it looks like mercy to Dean. For him, he knows, it would be hell; there would be no mercy found.  
  
But the door has almost just closed, and it has not yet been even one hour, and he does not have to think about it yet.  
  
 _Please_ , he thinks anyway.  _Please_ , just in case, just in case anyone is listening, though he is a monster and the pleas of monsters have only ever been answered by one person; Sam's pleas have only ever been answered by one real, and Dean is gone, Dean has left. And someone laughs in the room next door, and a car that isn't the Impala accelerates on the freeway. In the parking lot, another bottle breaks like one of Crusher's castoffs, too quickly, too shrill, no  _challenge_ , and Sam squeezes his eyes shut, and thinks of fire, Dean's eyes, women who lived to grow old, and waits.  
  
\--  
  
end


	13. For Those Left Behind, by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Part Two, Chapter 18: Nightmares in the Impala conflate the past and present.

_Sam had stopped being able to feel his legs and feet hours ago, but that wasn’t necessary or important. What was important was staying right where he was, huddled down against the concrete floor and metal wall of the barrack. Cold seeped through, numbing every part of him, but that was only a blessing.  
  
They were in lockdown, and the guards circled inside the barracks, shouting and waving their assault weapons. Every few moments, another monster got up to rush for the door, the same exact unsurprising direction, and every time the guards mowed them down, never missing. The monsters’ bodies tumbled and rolled, holes gaping in their chest or parts of their head blown away, but what was visible of their faces showed the same blank expression, unchanged in death.  
  
Kayla knelt in front of Sam, huddling against the wall same as he was. Her black eyes were emptier, darker than he had ever seen before, like two bottomless holes in which nothing could be seen, but they were fixed on Sam. She did not look away.  
  
He spoke to her quietly, below the shouts and gunfire and thuds of the monsters crashing to the floor._ We’ve gotta stay right here, Kayla. Don’t move, don’t look at them. It’ll be over. I know how it works, I’ve done this before. Just don’t get up. If they come over to look at us, pretend you’re already dead, even if they grab you. Don’t fight. Remember that.  
  
 _She didn’t answer, didn’t give any sign she heard or understood, but her dark eyes never wavered from his face._  
  
The Impala jolted over a bump, and Dean muttered, “Friggin’ cheap Michigan highways.”  
  
Sam opened his eyes. He was tilted sideways in the passenger seat, head cushioned against Dean’s folded leather jacket. He couldn’t remember if he had set it there or if Dean had slipped it into place.  
  
Earlier it had been overcast, but now the sun gleamed through the clouds, bouncing too-bright off the pavement. On either side of the highway were green fields, one side dotted with yellow and purple flowers, brilliant and vivid and there for the taking, if Dean happened to pull over. Sam could step out and gather the colors in his hands.  
  
His knees and calves ached, but perhaps it was because he had them folded up beside him on the seat, or because he had been running hard the night before, racing a ghost and knocking into furniture through the house. But his knees remembered too well the hours spent on the merciless floors or hard-packed ground of Freak Camp, and all his other senses prickled like they too had been there just a moment ago, with the cold, the rough material of the winter clothes, shouts and blasts echoing in his ears. All of that just as real as the dizzying colors, the hum of the Impala’s tires, the warmth suffusing him through the glass now.  
  
Sam wasn’t shaking, not like he usually did from a dream like that. Part of it was that he wasn’t entirely convinced he was yet awake—how could he tell, when everything now was no less real than what he had felt moments ago? It was enough to make him wonder if there was a part of him left behind in Freak Camp, a part that still felt everything, even if he wasn’t aware of it in waking hours. That would explain his nightmares, if every night he tapped back into that lost piece.  
  
It took effort to stir his limbs ( _they are here, in the Impala_ ), but once started they obeyed easily enough, moving him across the seat to Dean.  
  
Dean looked at him once in surprise, but Sam didn’t stop before folding himself to his side, burying his face in Dean’s neck to breathe in his scent—the same as on the leather jacket, but here with the heat of his body, the steady pulse in his neck which assured Sam, more than anything else could, that he was truly here. Dean’s arm slipped around his waist, pulling him that inch closer that told Sam Dean wanted him there, that Sam was here because Dean had pulled him out.  
  
This was real, then. But if Sam—all of him—was here in the Impala, that meant that Kayla ( _who had been just six inches from him only a few moments ago, just as certain as Dean’s presence now_ ) was back in Freak Camp.  
  
Sam had tried, occasionally, to believe that she was dead. But now he knew she wasn’t, and it didn’t surprise him. Kayla had been too smart; she had learned too well how to survive from him. She would last.  
  
Sam had not yet tried to speak since he opened his eyes, and he wondered if he could. Maybe his tongue was the piece of him left behind (that would be appropriate; it was the part of him they had owned more than any other). Maybe he would not speak again. He could believe it, now, that he would become as silent as Kayla, who was still alive in the camp where he was not. He could not speak because he remembered now that he was just like her, and so he also belonged back there, even if Dean had taken him out. He was the same as Kayla, who still obeyed the guards and held still when they told her to. Like Sam had told her to. And he could not speak because he would not, for the world, tell Dean that he ached for Kayla, who was just another freak, as sharply and painfully as he had never felt for himself.


	14. Shatter, by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two -- the first autumn: The sky is a bitter shade of white-blue which he associates with the skin of djinn-victims, drained and hopeless; the motel room three feet behind him is impossibly tempting.

It wasn't meant to get cold until Wednesday, and by Wednesday, if everything goes according to plan, they'll be heading south, already a state or two away from here. Dean stares out the window at the frost-covered parking lot, at the frost-covered cars with their ice-latticed windshields like the webs of huge spiders, and then, slowly and deliberately, closes the curtains. He waits a count of five and then reopens them.  
  
The frost is still there.  
  
He bites his lip for a second, considers his options. There's hunting down the meteorologist responsible for the faulty prediction, but that doesn't seem especially productive, and, okay, it might be a slight overreaction. Unearthing a grave in this weather's going to be a  _bitch_ , though. As is doing much of anything else outdoors. He's prepared for a lot -- on his person right now, he's got three blades, a gun, and two sets of lockpicks -- but _this_  fucking sucks. It's not like there was room to pack a few extra parkas in the trunk, at least not without leaving behind half the arsenal, and in his experience? Guns tend to trump GoreTex, at least when it's sixty degrees and sunny, as it was meant to be.  
  
The bathroom door opens and Sam steps out, his hair still shower-damp, the ends dripping water onto his plaid-cotton shirt, steam billowing out behind him. "What's wrong," he says, but he doesn't sound scared, not like he used to; he sounds almost amused, and Dean can live with that. Though he wonders what showed on his face, to tip Sam off.  
  
"Fucking weather," Dean says. "Apparently it turned into the freaking Arctic out there while we were sleeping."  
  
Sam cranes his neck to see past Dean out the window. "Um," he says. "You mean the frost?"  
  
"There's a lot of it," Dean says, because there  _is_. "It's all over the parking lot."  
  
Sam blinks at him. "Yes," he agrees, and Dean narrows his eyes, because whether or not Sam intends to, he sounds very much like somebody congratulating a toddler on their clever recognition of a dog or the color blue. One corner of Sam's mouth goes crooked in a smirk that goes right to Dean's heart and he swallows hard, because it goes right to other parts of him, too.  
  
"I'm just saying," he mutters. "It was meant to be warm."  
  
"The man on the news last night said that there's a theory that climate change is being caused by witches," Sam says. He doesn't look away when he says it, but his smirk fades, slightly, shadows into something faint and wrecked that aches bruise-deep into the center of Dean's chest.  
  
"Yeah, well, the man on the news said the same thing about his plunging viewing rates last week," Dean says. "Fuck 'em." He scratches the back of his neck, shrugs. "Look, we're gonna need warmer stuff than we've got if we're gonna spend any time out there, much less do any exhuming. There's gotta be a place nearby with, like, coats and gloves and shit, so I was thinking we'd stop there first, get breakfast after."  
  
Sam nods. "Okay." He lowers himself to one knee, reaches for the sneakers resting neatly side-by-side near the dresser, and Dean lets himself watch the back of his neck, tangle of his hair brushing the collar of his shirt, wants suddenly so fucking badly to slip his hand underneath it, twine his fingers around the strands and pull Sam close, warm them both with the press of his mouth to Sam's.   
  
Sam straightens back up abruptly and Dean shoves his hands into his pockets, has the absurd impulse to look up at the ceiling and whistle innocently. He settles for fishing the Impala's keys out of his pocket and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair where he tossed it the night before. He shrugs into the leather, stares at the door for a second -- aware that Sam is staring at  _him_ , and probably wondering what the hell he's waiting for, but it's going to be seriously ball-shriveling cold out there and maybe it takes Dean a minute to work up to that, so what, that does not in any way make him less badass -- and then reaches for the doorknob.  
  
He doesn't flinch, exactly. But his breath does catch, as he steps out into the cold which does not give at all, so that each step requires force, effort, strength, and which steals deeper into his body with each breath, weaving itself into his bones. His left knee instantly begins to ache, old bone-break coming back to life. The sky is a bitter shade of white-blue which he associates with the skin of djinn-victims, drained and hopeless. The motel room three feet behind him is impossibly tempting; they could go back in, hide beneath the blankets, Sam curled up against him, pay someone to bring them food. Try this again in a few hours, see if it's warmer, then. If it's  _habitable_.  
  
 _Man up_ , he tells himself, and straightens his shoulders even though he would just as soon hunch further into his jacket. Sam is keeping pace with him and sure as hell isn't complaining about it.  
  
He uses the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the frost from the driver's side lock so that he can insert the key, and the door creaks when he opens it. The leather is unyielding beneath him as he reaches across to unlock Sam's door; Sam ducks in and they close their doors in unison. Their breath is visible in the air, cold-haunted, as Dean fumbles the key into the ignition, turns it and waits for the engine to turn over.  
  
It doesn't. Instead, there's a sad, dying, choked noise, followed by  _nothing_ , and Dean feels his eyes go wide. _Fuck_. "What are you doing, baby, c'mon," he says, and turns the key again.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"God  _damn_  it," he says. "God damn it, I motherfucking  _hate_  the motherfucking goddamn cold," words sharp and loud and not really aimed at anything, because the targets he wants never make themselves present when he needs them to, and then he looks over at Sam, because even though Sam's doing better (so much better), sometimes he still -- reacts. Takes things personally. Things like Dean  _yelling_ , or near-yelling, and fuck, Dean should know better than to do that, now. He  _does_  know better. Has a lifetime's worth of nightmare-images to remind him, all the times Sam has flinched away or paled or gone completely, utterly still, still as  _death_  except for how Dean could still see him breathing, how fragile he was, how thin and barely-there. Images,  _memories_ , like that make Dean want to set things on fire, and that would actually be a useful response right now, considering the weather, except for how there's nothing to burn.  
  
He discards the thought, discards nearly  _all_  thoughts, when he sees Sam. When he sees the way Sam is shivering, hard, like he's having a seizure, and the way his hands are wrapped tightly around each other, fear-response, except for how they're between his knees,  _braced_  there, like he thinks he can make them stop shaking if only he applies enough pressure.  
  
The look on his face, though, is the worst. Because judging from  _that_ , he might as well still be in the motel room. Judging from  _that_ , he has no fucking  _idea_  that he's shivering, that he's even  _cold_ , even as tremors are wracking his whole goddamn body, or maybe it's just that he doesn't care.  
  
Maybe, most of all, it's that he thinks it doesn't  _matter_.  
  
Dean's first thought is  _possession_ , which it takes him all of two seconds to dismiss. His second is  _oh, fuck, Sammy_ , because he's been pretty damn cold, himself, has damn nearly  _died_  of it (this snarl of forest somewhere on the edge of Canada, and he was meant to meet Dad at the trailhead, but he got lost, wandered in circles for hours. Vague memory of Dad crashing towards him through the snow, shouting his name, and he'd woken up later in the cabin, flames crackling in the fireplace, covered with all the blankets they owned, Dad at his bedside and whiskey-smoke taste in his mouth, but that's wrong, it's  _John_ , now), and how the fuck used to freezing do you have to be before you don't even notice it anymore?  
  
He doesn't  _lunge_  across the seat, but he moves quickly enough that Sam gasps when Dean touches him. When Dean grabs him, pulling him close, hauling him in against Dean's chest. Dean's not exactly  _warm_ , himself, but he's a hell of a lot warmer than Sam is right now. "It's okay," Dean says out of habit, because Sam needs to know that this isn't because of something he did wrong, isn't because of him at all, and sometimes he can't make himself believe that unless Dean tells him specifically. It's  _not_  okay, of course, but that's not his fault, that's Dean's. Dean should have  _known_  better. Just because Sam doesn't look like he's one missed-meal away from dying, now, doesn't mean he can do this.  
  
 _Dean_  is cold, and he hasn't had to go without eating since he got his own credit cards, since he got to be responsible for it and didn't have to rely on John remembering, coming back in time, bringing dinner back before it got cold and congealed and damn near inedible. Sam might have gained some weight (not enough) since Dean got him out, enough to look merely like a kid who's definitely on the skinny side, maybe anorexic, but that does not mean he has the insulation for this. For anything  _like_  this.  
  
A winter like this, a month like this, a  _week_  of it, and Sam could die.  _Would_  die, if he didn't notice what it was doing to him.  _Will_  die, if Dean's not careful, if Dean doesn't pay attention.  
  
Sam's fingers are still so thin, trembling between Dean's own. Dean can feel his bones like sticks, held between the meager heat of Dean's palms.  
  
"What's wrong," Sam says again, and this time, he does sound scared. Dean shudders once, hopes it will be lost amongst Sam's own.  
  
"You're freezing," he says, and lets himself rest his forehead against the side of Sam's head, Sam's hair cold and still damp, and that can't be helping him at all. "You're freezing, Sammy, Jesus, kiddo, why didn't you  _say_ anything?"  
  
"I didn't," Sam says. Stops. Begins again, his teeth chattering, his voice shaking, and still it's like he cares more about answering the stupid fucking question than about the fact that he's fucking  _freezing_. "I didn't notice, and then I didn't think it would matter, your car's not working, you needed to focus, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Dean." His voice cracks on Dean's name. Dean will let himself believe it's with the cold, just this once (and how many times, before?).  
  
"Don't be. It's not your fault, Sam. It's -- it's nobody's fault, except for the bastards who did this to you," and except for  _Dean's_ , because if he'd thought about it for one fucking  _second_ , rather than whining about how cold  _he_  was going to be, he would have known. He wouldn't have let this happen, but that doesn't matter now, because he  _did_ let this happen, and the least he can do is try to make it right. "I'm gonna try the engine again, and if it doesn't start, we're gonna go back to the room, okay?" He doesn't want to let Sam go, but it's not like there's a fucking choice, so he makes himself pry his hands off of Sam's, and reaches for the ignition.  
  
 _Please_ \--  
  
This time, it catches. This time, the engine floods to life, full-bodied roar that Dean will associate for the rest of his life with  _home_. Dean turns up the heat, wraps his hands back around Sam's as he waits for that to take effect. It takes too long,  _far_  too long for Sam's sake, but Dean holds him the whole time, like he can will Sam to stay alive, to stay alive no matter what, if only he holds him tight enough, his heart beating against his ribs against Sam's own.  
  
When at last the car is warm enough that he can let Sam go, when the tremors have subsided enough to be called only  _minor_ , he makes himself do so, even though Sam looks at him when he does, even though Sam doesn't retreat to the other side of the car, even though he remains right beside Dean, where Dean put him. Dean would gladly hold him for as long as he needed, as long as he  _wanted_ , even though that is such a fucking chick flick thing to even  _think_ , but Sam never asked to be, to be fucking  _squashed_.  
  
And Dean's not really that warm, either. And sometimes he doesn't pay attention, sometimes he's a fucking selfish, self-centered asshole, and Sam needs something he can rely on. Sam needs a goddamn  _coat_ , and a hat, and gloves. Mittens. Maybe a scarf.  
  
In the meantime, Dean's own jacket will have to do. He shrugs out of the leather, drapes it around Sam's shoulders, and Sam doesn't move, doesn't react at all. "Put it on," Dean says, trying hard not to make it sound like an order even as he is so fucking terrified that he thinks it might be. "It's not -- it's not great, but it's better than nothing."  
  
"You need it," Sam says, and shakes his head once. "I'm much better now, I swear. You warmed me up, Dean, I'm okay, I'm o-okay."  
  
"You need it more," Dean says. "Please, Sam." Sam regards him for a moment and Dean wonders whether he's categorizing it as an order at last, if he's only going to do it because he's broken in  _that_  way, too. It's an exhausting thought, and a tremendously depressing one, and Dean suddenly wants nothing more than to write the whole day off. Go back inside, wrap Sam in all of the blankets, where he'll be safe and warm no matter what, have a drink against the way Dean's own blood feels now like it might be icing over, alcohol burn against the wintering, familiar thought that nothing he does might ever be enough.  
  
And then Sam puts on the jacket, his arms slipping into the sleeves. It's ridiculously large on him; it drowns him, swallows him up, the sleeves falling past his knuckles. It doesn't look  _at all_  like it does on Dean, or like it did on John, when John--  
  
When John wore it. When it was his. Before he gave it to Dean, before he told Dean that it was a family heirloom, kind of, but he'd earned it, earned the privilege, and that it would make John proud to see it on Dean's shoulders.  
  
John would burn it, if he knew. If he knew that what he calls a  _monster_ , this bright beautiful brilliant kid, the most genuinely fucking kind person Dean  _knows_ , the boy who cost him his son, had worn it for even a moment.  
  
There's something Dean should be doing right now, he knows. Driving. Driving somewhere. To do something. With Sam. But his hands are like lead on the wheel, and he's having trouble getting his vision clear, having trouble seeing out the windshield.  
  
On account of the frost.  
  
Even though the heat of the engine has melted it, mostly.  
  
"Dean?" Sam says. "Are you okay?," and Dean takes a breath like breaking the surface after nearly drowning, ragged and desperate and huge.  
  
"Yeah," he says. "Yeah. Let's go get you a real coat, huh?" He reaches for the gearshift, and Sam is pressed against his side, (at last) a warm, steady weight, and all Dean has to do is keep his eyes on the road. He can figure out the next step, can make himself be  _ready_  for the next step, to smile at Sam and make sure he eats and stays warm and maybe even tease him a little, if it looks like it's going to be a good day, later. When they get off the road.  
  
And he can drive as long as he needs to.  
  
\--  
  
Dean startles awake, unsure of what woke him up. The noise of a passing car, maybe, or a nightmare, his or one of Sam's own. Sam talking in his sleep, maybe, or whimpering, though he doesn't do that nearly as often anymore.  
  
Whatever it was, it doesn't happen again, and after a second, Dean lets himself exhale. Sam's still asleep, hands tucked beneath his head, chest rising and falling beneath Dean's palm, body snugged tight against Dean's own. When Dean had put them both to bed, Sam had his knees drawn up to his chest, but they're looser, now, slack with sleep, and the  _other_  tension that had held his body rigid had faded as Sam warmed up at last. He couldn't wear his new coat to bed, not with so many blankets wrapped around them -- they'd have both wakened overheated, at least, two bodies and all of those layers, and though Sam didn't say anything about it, Dean has this idea that Sam feeling like he's being restrained, maybe suffocated, as he sleeps might not be such a good thing -- but he's still wearing the hat Dean got him, black watch-cap tugged down over his ears, hair sticking out at weird angles from beneath it.  
  
If it had been up to Dean, he'd have gotten Sam one of the ridiculous ones. Something bright and floppy, all soft primary-colored fleece and absurdity. Though it  _was_  up to Dean, really. He could have picked one of those out, and bought it, and Sam would have thanked him and smiled and worn it until Dean told him not to, and done his best not to show Dean how scared he was of the attention it would have brought him.  
  
These are the sorts of things Dean knows, now. These are the sorts of things Dean has to watch out for. These are the sorts of things he's done to Sam, before.  
  
Sam sighs in his sleep, and Dean swallows. His skin feels tacky with sweat, with the gritty semi-nausea of being awake at the wrong time of day. He manages to lift his arm enough to read the display of his watch, but not so much that Sam will feel the movement and wake up. Sam deserves whatever sleep he can get; he  _needs_  it. Especially after the day Dean put him through.  
  
Two-seventeen a.m. Two in the morning, and Sam is asleep, and Dean is suddenly wide awake, the knowledge of mistakes made sour in his throat and guilt like a stone in his stomach. Sam doesn't blame him, he tells himself, and he knows that it's even true.  
  
That doesn't make it any better, though. Because Sam doesn't know any  _better_  than to not blame Dean.  
  
And that is the first thought in a series with which Dean is achingly familiar and which, he knows, will not let him get back to sleep. Which will keep him awake with might-have-beens and almost-weres, until all he can see are the scars on Sam's chest and the look on Sam's face every time he waited for Dean to hit him. Every time he  _waits_ , still, because who's to say that he doesn't expect it, that anything's truly changed, that just because he  _looks_  happier,  _seems_  happier, he's not still waiting for the day Dean breaks, not still waiting for Dean to deliver him a blow which he will relax into, because he has been waiting for it for so long and there it is at last, proof that Dean has never been any better than the sons of bitches who tortured him and—  
  
Dean's flask, once his mom's and then his dad's and now at last his own, is in his duffel, sleep and temporary salvation in the form of Jack wrapped in his third-favorite shirt. He lifts his hand from Sam's chest once more, inches away from Sam slowly so that he'll be able to sit up, throw off the blankets and get out of bed without waking him. Sam will probably sleep better when he's not being smothered, after all, when he won't feel pinned down, pinned to Dean, suffocated and bound.  
  
Dean's almost to the edge of the bed when Sam moves, uncurls one hand from beneath his head and reaches out for Dean's own, for the one that he'd rested against Sam's chest. Sam's eyes are still closed, and Dean freezes in place as Sam's hand closes over his, and  _tugs_.  
  
It's not a sudden gesture, nor a strong one; were it anybody else, Dean would be able to write it off as random. He still  _can_ , he tells himself; just because he knows exactly how much (how little) force Sam has worked to believe that he is allowed to exert over Dean doesn't mean that  _this_  is an example of it. Maybe Sam's having a dream. Maybe he's just -- twitching. Or something.  
  
"Dean," Sam says, and yeah, it's sleep-mumbled, but it's  _recognizable_ , and he doesn't sound afraid. As Dean waits, Sam opens his eyes, though only partway. "Where're you going?" There's no urgency to the question; it's hardly a question at all. Sam doesn't even sound  _awake_.  
  
Which he will be, if Dean leaves.  
  
"Nowhere, Sammy," he says, and he makes himself,  _lets_ himself, move closer once more, fit Sam's body against his own. Sam lets out a deep breath, relaxing against Dean's chest; his eyes have drifted closed once more.  
  
Just for a minute, Dean tells himself. Just until Sam falls asleep again.  
  
And then Sam's hand comes up to cover Dean's, where it rests over Sam's heart, and Dean dismisses the possibility of ever moving again, or at least ever moving before Sam wakes up, before Sam pulls away. For Sam, he tells himself again. He's doing this for Sam, because it's what Sam needs right now. It doesn't mean he's forgiven, it doesn't make up for what he did, and what he  _almost_  did, to Sam the morning before. It doesn't.  
  
It doesn't, he thinks, stifling a yawn.  _It doesn't_ , though he's no longer sure what exactly he means by that, what he was thinking. Sam is warm against him, Sam is holding Dean's hand, is holding Dean's hand to his chest, and right now, that's so much more important than whatever the fuck else Dean had been thinking about; whatever it was can wait until later, when--  
  
He's asleep before he finishes the thought, and he doesn't dream.  
  
\--  
  
end


	15. A Small and Undefined Amount of Comfort, by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Chapter Twenty-One: John deals with his emotions with the same unhealthy coping mechanisms Winchesters have used for generations. It's not a lot of comfort, but he'll take what he can get.

John stares at the phone, thumb still on the END button, the word  _whore_  still burning his lips. The night is cold (Upper Michigan’s a bitch of wild woodlands and hodag at the best of times, but riding up on the beginning of October, there’s a bite in the air that speaks of early snow and black ice on the road that he doesn’t like, too much reminded of long winters with his boy curled around his empty stomach in the Impala’s shotgun seat because John was too damn shivery to steal, and they were too damn poor to eat), and he can see the mist rising in front of him, throwing up some kind of wall between his eyes and the damn bit of tech in his hand.  
  
Hunters lie, and hunters are cocky assholes, and when they’re drunk they forget the truth. He knows this as well as anybody, doesn’t need Singer muttering it into his whiskey to see it, but maybe because he spent the first ten years of hunting actively avoiding anyone who would look at him and see Mary Campbell’s husband, the company grates, and even listening to other hunters can drive him harder than he would like, maybe makes him—not careless, never fucking careless, you don’t survive hunting being careless—but  _intent_  in a way that’s not completely safe. Maybe it’s that he’s getting too damn old for this game and the new hunters are far too young.  
  
All he wanted to do was call his son and know that the latest fucking lies weren’t true.  
  
John knows this flavor on his tongue, and it’s not alcohol (though he’s washed it down with that more times than he can count on his fingers and toes and round again until he doesn’t know what he’s counting anymore) and it’s not even quite regret, because regret doesn’t have this fucking bite, this edge of hate and ashes and loss, this desire to see someone else bleed and wishing it was himself under the knife all the same time. No, regret doesn’t have this  _edge_.  
  
But there’s a freak out there with his name. And a freak-lover.  
  
He’s not sure what drives him back into the bar, but the heavy weight of his black truck isn’t any kind of comfort tonight, not when the nearest hunt isn’t something he should touch on the dark of the moon (he’ll probably get himself killed one day, preferably bringing down the freak that took Mary, not on some rookie mistake like that) and he needs something to take this acid off his tongue or at least transmute it into something he can handle. Because this, this he can’t.  
  
The laughter is loud in the bar, the music some raucous mess with too much bass that gets behind his eyes and turns the edges of his sight black. John takes a stool from a skinny guy with not enough gel in his hair to make a statement and too much for any kind of class (a look, a glower, and the guy takes his fucking sunrise girly drink and shuffles off to some safer corner) and settles heavily into it, feeling the weight of his bones like he hears the music as a second-heartbeat in his chest.  
  
One grunt at the bartender gets him a drink (whiskey on the rocks), and John realizes through the dull haze that the fucking phone is still in his hand. He drops it and raises his glass to his mouth at the same time, like his hands are fixed on a fucking fulcrum: when one goes up, the other goes down. He downs the drink and slams the shot glass down hard. He wonders if he can split a glass just by ramming it onto the table. His left hand comes up as his right goes down, the arms working in tandem again, and he runs his fingers—shaking with rage and fear and the certain knowledge that that was his boy on the phone fucking up his life—through his ragged-edged hair.  
  
“Get me a-fucking-nother,” he says.  
  
The bartender eyes him up and down. John wonders what the fuck he thinks he’s looking at. Maybe the eyes that have seen enough fucking death for a lifetime and not the fucking death for which John’s been searching. Maybe the hands that shake. And maybe he’s wondering if John’s a fucking hobo who can’t pay his bill.  
  
“You okay, man?” he asks, reaching back behind the bar for the whiskey (from the well tonight, John isn’t sure what he’s got in his wallet, not sure that the credit card he’s been using lately is still good in this state), moving slower than he should. The guy pours too well to be new at the job. John figures that he’s probably been tending bar as long as John’s been gutting monsters (too fucking long and never fucking long enough) and he knows the placement of booze in his bar as well as John knows the location of his knives (belt, back, boots, left sleeve) and the attitude of every fuck in the bar.  
  
That’s the thing about freaks. They can be anyone, anywhere. You can’t look past the mousiest little girl or the buffest asshole, because any one of them could show fang and be at your throat in a heartbeat. You can’t let anyone watch your back because they might shove a blade in it. The only people you can trust are family.  
  
And even family can get fucked the hell up.  
  
“I’m fucking fine,” John growls. “Now pour me a fucking drink before I ask you again.” He slams cash onto the bar, hard (no way the counter top is going to break, but it makes him feel better to feel the blow echo through the bones of his hand, feel the aches there and know that he’s alive, that he’s somewhere, that the alcohol and the pain haven’t stolen away his senses and left him a rank hallucination, something sucked dry by the djinn or the endless flow of the late-night TV news announcing that the only woman you’ll ever love is dead in a fucking bureaucrat’s morgue a lifetime away). The real, physical pain dulls that thing which is not regret but if he’s not careful will have him tearing this place to the ground just so that he doesn’t have to scream. He’d scream, if he could without breaking something in his ribs, something broken anyway because he doesn’t have a son anymore, just a fucking freak-lover, and, no matter what he’d said, John could never pull the trigger.  
  
And then a hand falls heavily on his shoulder.  
  
Johns twists, fast, one hand up to break the freak’s hand before he even consciously registers the contact, but the owner’s reactions are fast enough (sober enough) that John doesn’t get a handle on the guy. John spins, and the world spins slightly after him (one too many drinks for optimum performance, but he’s taken down werewolves in a worse state, not that he’s proud of those days). But as soon as he’s turned around, adrenaline high, hands itching to punch something, he know that it’s not that kind of fight, and that bitterness rises up in him again, now with more regret in the mix.  
  
The bastard behind him is human—average height, brown hair, old eyes—a hunter, smirking at the Great Winchester like John’s some kind of sideshow, the civvie that learned how to fight. He’s got two guys behind him, so young they look like they should have pimples on their noses, and they all have that look, the one that says that if they’re not Campbells, they’ve probably been brainwashed in that mess they call a Hunter Training Program. Fucking Campbells. John’s seen more good hunters come out from manning a checkout line on Black Friday than out of that damn program. The only thing he’s ever been able to say for the Campbells was that they know how to train up an asshole.  
  
“Hey, Winchester,” the lead kid says, cocky and grinning. “Thought you’d left.”  
  
“Yeah, mister.” The backup on the left has his drawl down, casual and mocking even on an honorific. “You had a few.”  
  
John leans back against the bar, peripheral senses on the movement of the bartender on the other end, watching each of the fucks before him and keeping an eye out for backup too. He slips his right hand over his left forearm and rubs the hilt there like he’s got  _ye old arthritis_  acting up, like the old man he is. “You want something?”  
  
The ringleader smirks a little deeper. “You offering?”  
  
John’s hand closes around the knife. “Nothing you’d want.”  
  
“Wouldn’t be so sure about that. You know, you can’t ever be sure of what someone wants these days.” The guy moves forward, leaning over the bar like he doesn’t have a care in the world and like he doesn’t give a damn that John can see the back of his neck, can see the bones there and beneath it the edge of a Kevlar vest sloppily buttoned up. “Like your boy. I heard that he’s got himself a freak, prances it out like a sideshow pony. You heard that too, fellas?”  
  
The other two nodded, moving around him like a hunting pack of vamps around a mark, so sure of the kill that they maybe aren’t even aware of the exit that they’ve left him, of how easy it would be to bolt.  
  
Maybe that’s what they want him to do. Animals love it when you run. John can count on his teeth and his scars the times he’s run, the times when he knew he couldn’t take something down alone. And he knows that, every time, it wasn’t his own hide that he cared about. He can remember long years when he didn’t give a single fuck about his skin, couldn’t imagine anything better than being with Mary, giving up the damn fight it felt like he was never going to win and maybe seeing her again, even if he didn’t believe in God anymore, and wasn’t sure he wanted to keep on going after death if he kept going as one of the ghosts and monsters he’s killed.  
  
Every damn time, there had been one reason that he walked away from the impossible fight, and it hadn’t been himself. It had been the boy waiting back at the hotel room, at Bobby’s, now some fucked-up curtain-and-lace condo in Boulder playing house with a freak,  _that_  was the reason John had walked away from any fight he ever had, because he had to stay alive. He had to come back. He couldn’t leave his son in this fucked-up world alone.  
  
He never figured that the same damn boy, that stupid fucking son of a stupid fucking bastard, would spit on everything John had ever taught him.  
  
“Tell you what, Winchester.” The kid next to him is still smirking, like he thinks that all John’s got on him is knives, thinking that a scrap of a vest, no matter what it’s made of, can watch his back when he’s got nothing but a sorry bunch of fucks for family. “You got a freak for a fuck-toy-in-law, I think on a happy day like that a man deserves a drink.” He jerks his head at the bartender. “Get this man an appletini. Make it a double.”  
  
“I can’t believe there’s a freak named Winchester,” another says. “You think Dean makes the freak call him ‘John’ like a good little whore? Or maybe it’s just because he always wanted to be his daddy.”  
  
It’s not even a conscious decision. John leaves those to sober moments at dawn with the ashes of the dead beneath them. He leaves introspection and realization to a hundred miles outside of town, a four-year-old in the back seat and the crumpled remains of the jacket of his funeral suit in the seat beside him. He’s lived with a single great Plan for almost two decades now, and it hasn’t left a lot of room for the details.  
  
He does it because he’s John fucking Winchester, and that used to be something he didn’t have to be ashamed of.  
  
The ringleader's head makes a satisfying cracking sound against the bar (distracted laughing at his buddy’s joke, he forgot that a Kevlar vest won’t do shit to protect your brain), and John shoves him off to his left while he retreats. The two remaining kids rush him at the same time, training doing at least something to give them the edge John’s been honing since he found a reason to hate (long before he left for ‘Nam). One gets in a good punch to his eye, but John catches the second punch and twists it, and hears the bones breaking beneath his hands.  
  
The third kid turns to run (at least that’s what John thinks), but when he skids around the pool table, it turns out he’s just going for his coat. The knife that hits the kid’s shoulder bounces right off his vest, but throws off his aim and sends the shotgun blast he was aiming at John’s skull into the fancy glass light over the pool table. Civilians scream for the exits and the kid swears, fumbling to reload.  
  
John jumps the table and doesn’t fucking care about his hips screaming at him that he’s not twenty anymore, doesn’t care about the shards of glass slicing through the old denim of his jeans. All he’s aware of, really, is the fierce snarl on his face, the dim and twisted sort of joy he gets as he socks the bastard straight in the jaw and watches him go down in a pitiful, boneless heap on top of his gun.  
  
John’s panting, afterward, one knife he never needed to use in his right hand. The bartender has a gun pointed at his head, but John would be lying if he said he gave a flying fuck. If he knew there was a hunt he could win within a forty-mile radius, he would go now, drive through the night and drink with his headlights off. He’d face down evil without a second thought, hoping that the impact of bone against bone, of blade into bloodsucking flesh would be able to wash away that same damn feeling that nothing was worth a fuck. He hadn’t even been drunk enough to give these bastards a fair fight.  
  
But he would be.  
  
He sheaths the knife and pulls a twenty out of his pocket, throws it on the pool table and its dusting of glass. “Keep the change,” he says.  
  
And then John fucking Winchester leaves, regret rising back up on his tongue, and the latest in a long line of shitty plans a slow, toxic, comforting glow inside his gut where he used to have family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *A small and undefined amount of comfort—the true title of this timestamp is "quantum of solace". Except, you know, in smaller words...
> 
> *hodag—a beastie that was proven to be a hoax. Not sure if they actually exist in this universe or if John is using them as a metaphor for "a lot of supernatural crap going down". Strictly speaking they should be in northern Wisconsin, but Upper Michigan is colder :P
> 
> *It's hard to reconcile, sometimes, the John Winchester that we actually MET in Seasons 1 and 2 with the increasingly distant and absent figure he's become in later seasons. And then to look at how that would be changed around if there had been more of a support network and John had not just been running/hiding from the supernatural threat but also from a government that would have used him and his family. He honestly truly is a jerk and an asshole, but he also cares so deeply that it hurts, you know?
> 
> *Chapter Twenty-Two is in progress. Very slow progress, but progress none-the-less! You can happily blame my and Lavinia's places of employment, they are horrible people who leave us insufficient time to write :)


	16. Deprivation: by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their first days on the road, Sam holds an orange in his hands for the second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a flashback scene, way back to a few days after the boys left Boulder, that explains a mysterious comment Dean made about oranges in Chapter 23. Because I always love returning to the exceedingly-fragile!Sam days.

Sam jerked awake with a spasm, his body locking up as a siren shattered the early morning silence.  He couldn’t breathe, echoes of demon-attack warnings in his ears, and for one moment convinced that  _that’s it, the ASC are here, they’ve come to take me back_.  
  
Dean had started up too, looking around and blinking in bleary confusion before he mumbled, “Jus’ some damn car alarm, Sammy, nothin’ to worry ‘bout,” and dropped back into the pillows, one arm reaching to tug Sam back down too.  
  
But Sam lay tensely for another minute, his heart pounding faster than the relentless, obdurate beeps still sounding outside.  He closed his eyes, turning his face to Dean’s shoulder, trying to focus on how he was  _here_ with Dean, five days out of Boulder and safe in a motel room on the outskirts of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  No one knew where they were.  Dean would keep them safe.  
  
The car alarm finally stopped two minutes later, restoring the quiet but not the peace of a few minutes earlier. Sam could still feel the reverberation in his ears, and he could hear footsteps on the pavement, low voices muttering and complaining.  After a moment, Sam eased out of bed for the bathroom. When he came back out, Dean was sitting up, rolling his head to crack his neck.  
  
“Ready for breakfast, Sam?  Might as well raid the breakfast bar before all the good stuff is gone.”  
  
Sam nodded, managing a small smile that won a tired one from Dean in response, before moving to his duffel to dig out clothes for the day. This was earlier than they got up most mornings, but they had also gone to bed early last night, Dean tired out from a long day of driving.  
  
Unlike the previous mornings in motel breakfast rooms, this one was empty except for an elderly couple, eating at a small table next to a window.  Dean kept his hand on Sam’s back as they entered the room, as he usually did whenever they went somewhere new, or just about anytime they were outside the Impala.  Sam followed Dean’s lead, going first to the drinks station to fill little cups of juice (for Sam) and coffee (for Dean), and set those on a table picked out for themselves before going back for the food.  Sam cast a nervous glance behind him and toward the doors, but he trusted Dean’s confidence that no one would go for their drinks.  
  
Sam knew now about the packages of dry cereal that rattled when he picked them up, and he liked those quite a lot, especially Lucky Charms, which Dean had kept in the apartment in Boulder, too.  As he peeled back the paper cover to carefully pour in milk from the jug kept in a bowl of ice, Dean sprayed down the inside of the waffle maker from the bottle nearby before tipping in the cup of batter.  
  
Sam better understood the elements of breakfast, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the quiet, leisurely atmosphere of the motel breakfast rooms and restaurants.  No one fought or even shoved to get at the food; they took it for granted that everyone would have enough, however much they wanted.  It was difficult to slow down eating, not to hunch over his plate and automatically keep an eye out for anyone coming to make a grab for it.  But this was food he wanted to taste, worth lingering over, and certainly worth pausing to look Dean in the eye and smile occasionally.  
  
The waffles and cereal were more than filling enough, but Sam glanced back over to the breakfast counter, wondering what Dean might snag on the way out, as usual, to eat on their drive.  In the middle of the counter sat a basket filled with colorful fruit — at least, what Sam assumed was fruit from pictures and other brief encounters. He knew apples; Becca had used to bring him those.  Dean had given him a banana from a gas station two days ago and shown him how to peel it.  
  
But something else in the basket kept catching his eye — two bright orange balls, about the same size as the apples.  He had the feeling he’d seen it before, probably sometime in the last month.  
  
“Whatcha checkin’ out, Sam?”  
  
Sam jumped and looked down at his plate, guilt squirming in him.  Of course Dean had noticed.  Sam  _didn’t_ want anything else, not when he had such an abundance of food before him, food no one was going to try to steal before he finished eating.  It seemed so  _wrong_ to want anything else, to leave less for the reals coming next.  
  
But Dean meant it sincerely. He might have even been  _hopeful_ , if Sam had heard right.  Reals wanted things all the time, no matter how much they already had, and Sam was supposed to be acting like one.  
  
Sam lifted his eyes again, first to Dean — who did look hopeful, hopeful and nervous at the same time — and then back to the fruit basket.  “That,” he began, and his nerve failed him. He lowered his voice to the quietest whisper, so that Dean had to lean across the table to hear him.  “I j-j-just wondered what...the orange ball...”  
  
Dean glanced toward the breakfast bar, then said, “Oh, yeah,” and pushed off the table and out of his chair so fast that Sam flinched, then tried to cover for it, rolling his shoulders back, and hoped Dean hadn’t noticed.  But Dean was crossing the room in a few quick strides, then on his way back with the orange ball in his hand.  He set it down more carefully, almost noiselessly, on the table between them, before sitting back down.  
  
“Yeah, that’s an orange, Sammy.”  Dean’s voice was quiet too, much quieter than usual, like he knew the importance of not letting anyone overhear him explaining things only a freak wouldn’t know.  
  
Sam took it cautiously between his hands, feeling the surface, both pebbly and smooth and perfectly round.  It didn’t look edible.  He’d held one before, he was more certain of it, but not recently.  “L-like the color?”  
  
“Yeah, and just like your juice.”  
  
Sam blinked, looking from the solid orange ball to his plastic cup of liquid that he’d always thought was named for the  _color_ , not its source.  He couldn’t imagine the conversion process, unless some sort of tube were stuck through the ball to the middle, which might be liquid.  
  
“Yeah, um.”  Dean made a quick, aborted gesture as though to reach across the table, before holding his palms out.  “Here, lemme show you.”  
  
Sam placed the orange in his hands at once, and Dean set his thumbnails together near the top, then pressed in and peeled back a thick section of  _skin_.  
  
Sam jerked back in his chair, and Dean stopped at once.  Sam could feel Dean’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t look away from the orange and the exposed white inner layer.  His heart was pounding in his chest, and he didn’t know why.  
  
“Sammy?”  
  
Sam swallowed, his mouth very dry, and made himself speak.  “G-g-go on.”  
  
“You sure?” Dean sounded wary, but Sam nodded.  
  
Slower, more deliberately, Dean continued peeling away the outer layer of the orange, revealing more of the white underflesh and, sometimes, a paler orange beneath that.  Sam held himself very still, hardly daring to breathe, not looking away for a second from Dean’s hands.  Finally when the thick orange skin lay in pieces on the table, Dean turned the bare orange over once, inserted his fingers into a hole in the bottom, and popped it open, breaking it in half.  
  
Sam couldn’t help it.  He made a muffled noise that didn’t sound  _real_ at all, that was more like being kicked in the stomach at the end of a beating, and he clapped his hands over his mouth too late.  
  
The orange was a miraculous thing, he saw now, made of many small sections arranged in a sphere, each one translucent.  It looked edible, now.  
  
Sam had had no idea of that five minutes ago, nor long years back, when a guard had tossed him an orange.  
  
He’d held it in his hands just as uncertainly, rolling it back and forth.  He recalled the sweet smell, the fascinating texture, the trepidation because guards’ gifts always had a bite to them.  He remembered another monster lunging for it, and himself pulling back instinctively without knowing why what he held was valuable. He’d held it for maybe ten seconds before the guard took it away again.  
  
He remembered the dull ache, interspersed with cramping pains, in his belly that day, before and after.  
  
“Sammy?” Dean had dropped the orange and stretched one open hand across the table, as he often did.  
  
Sam raised his eyes first to the older couple sitting by the window, who hadn’t turned in their direction.  Then he looked at Dean, whose face was paler, strained, and younger than usual (and other descriptions Sam never wanted to apply to Dean, like  _fear_ and  _desperation_ ) — all a look that was both new and familiar, only first seen in the last few weeks, though Sam couldn’t count (no, he didn’t want to count, there was a difference) how many times he’d brought that look to Dean’s face.  
  
And the cause of all this was another thing Sam couldn’t bring himself to explain, that he couldn’t have found the words for if he tried.  He knew, too, that an apology was the last thing Dean wanted to hear now.  So instead he made himself move his hand, to touch Dean’s, though he couldn’t move his fingers all that well, but Dean squeezed his hand tight for him, as though that small gesture was all he wanted.  
  
“Do — you want to try some?” Dean sounded uncertain, and Sam managed to shake his head.  He didn’t know why the thought of eating that orange, of finding out its taste on his tongue, made him feel sick, like the so-good breakfast he had just eaten wanted to come straight back up. He didn’t  _know_ why he wanted nothing more than to return to their room, press his face to Dean’s T-shirt, and cry like he was permitted to do at night.  
  
“Okay,” Dean said.  “That’s okay.”  He placed the orange on his plate, then pushed it out of the way before taking Sam’s hand with both of his own.  “Don’t worry about it, Sam.”  
  
They stayed like that, quiet and holding hands over the table, as the older couple at last got up from their chairs, gathering their styrofoam plates and cups.  Before they reached the doorway, however, a family entered the room, with two small kids chattering loudly and arguing over which cereal was the best.  
  
Sam winced, and Dean squeezed his hands again, then asked if he were ready to head out.  Sam nodded.  
  
They left the orange broken open on its plate, for any real who might want it.


	17. Coping Mechanisms: by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it helps to remind yourself that they’re just freaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a...remix? Expansion? Of Deprivation by Lavinia. You should definitely read that one too (first? maybe first, because it was first). Warning -- this takes place in Part One, inside Freak Camp; it features some fairly horrible human beings, but not nearly as much gore and horror as you may be used to from me.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that they’re monsters, especially when they look like kids.

Hollow-eyed kids, half (or more than half) starved, sure. Raw, flaking skin from the sunlight on the rare vampiric child (children don’t turn well, don’t have enough blood to survive the bite or the evil inside, some said, to survive the ripping away of their humanity) just made them look, in the right light, like refugees, like those pictures of starving kids in Africa that his grandma keeps sending money to feed, like some poor dog with so many scabs the Humane Society’s gonna put it down.

Sometimes it helps to remind yourself that they’re just freaks.

Vic and Lonny showed him one way to do it (fuck, it makes him sick what they do sometimes, but it’s not like he can say anything. Sometimes he wonders if this place makes monsters of them all, if there’s just some kind of evil in the air, something that lingers no matter how many bodies burn up in SR’s unsanctified flames). It’s a game for them, but for him it helps, when he starts losing his edge, when he can’t hit the freaks down the way he has to so they stay down, when he’s starting to wonder why the fuck he’s here.

You take something. An apple, a half a fucking sandwich wrapped up so tight in Saran that it’s just a lump of bread and processed meat. And you toss it in the yard. Wait until the freaks see, until they process what it is they’re seeing (he thinks sometimes that they’re like him, not seeing the outside world, a world beyond this place in so long that some things don’t make sense right away, that things are normal that should be horrible), until they register that what’s ended up in their cages is food.

They look like kids, but they’ll rip into each other like piranhas, slaughtering the weakest of their own kind just to get to the meat, to the food, to the prize. He’s seen little girls who looked no older than nine flash sharpened, snake-like fangs and sink them into another monster’s throat, drinking that blood down when another freak got to the real food before her, and accepting the flesh of her fellow as good enough. He’s seen others, arms dangling by a a few strands of sinew, grinning as they hoist a shredded piece of sandwich, devouring everything and the plastic most times because any hesitation meant some other freak without that kind of damage could take what they have, maybe take off their head too, for a fucking fifty-cent candy bar.

It’s easier to hit them, then, easier to curse and beat them back, when there’s so much proof before him that they’re not human, no matter how hard they try.

Today it’s oranges. One of the guys (maybe a researcher) brought in a whole batch, some sale their kid had in school, and a couple of the guys laughed about how he had so many damned oranges in his house that he was starting to get sick of them, and no one else would eat them, so he may as well bring them to work, right? So there’s this pile in the break room, and the guys have been tossing them around. Victor says something about the whole thing feeling very yonic, like he’s made a joke and no one gets it, and outside the other shift is running roll call, and he can hear the screaming already of something being made an example of, and the bile’s rising in his throat, and he can’t show that, not with Victor there laughing and Lonny and the rest of the guys who don’t seem to hear it or see anything wrong with what they’re doing, no matter how they complain about the hours and benefits and pay.

So he takes an orange.

He’s mostly alone when he gets where they keep the freak-kids (none of the guys is really alone, not unless they’re back between the barracks, and even then everyone knows where they’ve gone and why) and there’s one kid kind of hanging by himself, easy to pick out, so that’s where he tosses the fruit.

The kid catches it, and then looks terrified, like he caught a grenade. And fuck, he’s got these huge eyes, eyes that don’t carry any of the sharp evil he’s seen in the freaks they hold here, none of the guile or malevolence, just the same kind of terror he hopes never to see in his nephew’s eyes, his sister’s, his niece’s. After a second of just staring, he looks down at the thing he’s caught, turns it over, raises it closer to his face. Then he crouches kind of awkwardly and sets the orange on the ground, gently rolling it back and forth.

And from beyond the gate, the guard feels his stomach drop because the kid  (can’t be more than seven) clearly has no fucking idea what he’s been given.

And that’s when another monster hits him from behind, clawing for it. The littler kid fights, but it’s an unequal struggle against something that had claws and fangs and it’s digging into the orange, trying to fit the whole damn thing in its too-small mouth, and the guard’s wading into the disaster, beating the shit out of anything that moves and he may be screaming, he can’t even tell anymore, but the freaks get out of his way, the fucking freaks get out of his way, and he doesn’t stop until the one who stole the orange is down and the crushed pulp of the thing, just barely held together by its skin, is clenched in his hand.

He leaves the way he came, shaking, half afraid they’ll jump him while his back is tuned, half-wishing, because that would give him another reason to hit, which is better than all the fucking things he’s thinking about and knowing and can’t fight and can’t ignore and fuck it all.

He dumps the mutilated orange in the trash in Administration, goes to Medical, says they may have gotten a scratch on him, that he doesn’t feel well, and they check him over as close as that deserves in a place that deals with everything that the human mind can’t really comprehend. He figures his grandmother would be ashamed of him for lying, his grandfather would turn his back on him for being a yellow-bellied coward, but he can’t, anymore, he can’t do this. He can’t see freaks the way he has to to do his damn job.

From a distance he can hear the screaming again, but this time he’s not sure where it’s coming from. Maybe they’ve gone to discipline the little freaks that he just beat the shit out of, maybe he’s just hearing things because you hear a lot of screaming in FREACS, and he thinks that after long enough it probably becomes something that rings in your ears. Maybe that’s why Victor makes jokes no one else gets, because he can’t hear himself talk and he’s not even trying any more.

When Medical releases him (it takes two days because he can’t stop shaking and there’s a damn lot that they don’t know about what evil can do to a man), he goes straight to the Director’s office.

Old Man Campbell’s in there, staring into the middle distance like he’s being doing a lot of that lately, like he think that there’s something he should be doing, something he should remember, but he can’t quite make out the sound of it. He wonders if Samuel has the same screaming in his ears that he can’t shake out. Somehow he doubts it’s the same screams.

“Sir, I’ve…I’ve got my resignation here, sir.” He holds the papers in his hand.

The old man just sits there, staring at him distantly, and then he seems to snap to.  “I already talked to Medical, they said they didn’t find anything wrong.”

“Maybe not supernatural, sir, but…I got rattled, sir, I let the…I like them see me rattled, and I don’t…I can’t go back. I’m sorry.” And he is sorry, here, seeing the tired old man behind the too-large desk and knowing that he’s the least of the people he’s letting down, and Samuel Campbell is, in so many ways, such a great man.

But the great man himself just sighs, picks up a stamp, and marks the papers without a second look.

“I’m sorry to lose you, son,” he says. “But I understand. It’s not the life for everyone.”

“No sir, thank you, sir.” He leaves as soon as he can, even though it looks like Samuel wants to talk, ramble about the reports and the freaks, closing the door softly behind him.

FREACS is no place for a man, not when he forgets what he’s guarding (family, country, life, real innocents) and why he’s there. Not when he looks at a child-freak and can no longer see the evil beneath the camouflage.


	18. Wash My Sins Away: by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean doesn't like them, so Sam would take them away if he could, though he's not sure what would be left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two, sometime around Chapter 23: This story is a fine example of how I cannot perform the most mundane errands without getting distracted by how Sam would see everything around me, and then I leave the shop weeping into a handkerchief.

"It was totally a badass move, you know," Dean said for the fifth time, because he wasn't so sure the flush in Sam's cheeks was just from exertion and cold. "But yeah, I'm gonna miss that hat too, because it was cute as hell on you."  
  
Sam's flush deepened, and that was definitely the good kind of coloring. Once they'd confirmed the evil supernatural pig (“a hodag, Dean”) was dead, Sam's share of exultation from a successful hunt with barely a scratch between them faded into deep remorse that his beanie hat had been reduced to two scraps of hodag-saliva-drenched fabric. Never mind that it had been the ingenious plan that saved the day, when the hodag had Dean cornered and was all set to charge with those ugly tusks pointed: Sam had stuffed his hat on the end of a stick and thrown it over the hodag’s shoulder, and the combined noise and scent had distracted it long enough for Dean to drive his stake through its neck.  
  
Sam's disproportionate distress over the hat was familiar from every other time Sam had lost or damaged anything Dean had gotten him, so Dean handled it like he had learned to do: mixing assurances that, dude, that wasn’t exactly some one-of-a-kind piece woven from the wool off the butt of the Dalai Lama's favorite lamb. That kind of ridiculous bullshit usually did the job, getting Sam to laugh and lose the anxiety.  
  
"See, we can check out that drugstore at the end of the block from the motel. Bet they have one you like even better."  
  
Sam smiles, and it's radiant with the wide flash of teeth, set off by his messy hair (always in need of a haircut, but Sammy didn't like strangers crowding close to his neck and head as they wielded blades, and if Dean had to do it himself, go ahead and sue him if he didn't like to clip off too much and risk giving Sam some goofy-looking cut that drew attention). "There's a few other things we should restock, too. We can go now, before dinner."  
  
Sometimes Dean had trouble remembering it hadn’t quite been four months since he’d busted Sam out of Freak Camp. If asked offhand, he would have sworn it was at least six months, though it still felt like they’d traveled much further, years packed in over weeks.  
  
Four months had taken them a hell of a ways. The more Dean thought about it—even when he was looking at a stained calendar pinned to the wall of a rest stop—the more four months didn’t even seem possible, not for how far Sam had come in that time, for how totally  _different_ he was now than he had been back in the summer. This was a Sam who wasn’t afraid to step from his side, to meet people in the eye, to speak to them and ask questions. Dean caught sight of his smile nearly every day now, and even his  _laugh_ wasn’t so much of a holy-shit-it’s-a-fucking-miracle-day event.  
  
This Sam was mind-blowingly hot, and Dean didn’t feel so much of a pervert for thinking that, either. This Sam leaned in to kiss him, a bright eager light in his eye to match the curve of his lips, before and after, and Dean had a hell of a harder time remembering why the PG rule was a good idea.  
  
But there were reminders, and they always sucked. Sam still couldn’t shake the nightmares for more than a week at most, and they sometimes left him sobbing or choking for air, unable to relax or let go of his double-fisted grip on Dean’s shirt. There were things—all the time, and half the time Dean didn’t even see or hear them, had no idea what shook his kid—that robbed Sam of every bit of progress he’d made, making him flinch back, pull to Dean’s side, drop his gaze until there weren’t any other eyes on them.  
  
Still, they had a list of places now that could be counted on as safe zones, ninety percent of the time. Places that Dean didn’t have to worry about, didn’t have to keep his hand near Sam’s and an extra-sharp eye out for how close strangers approached. Libraries were first on the list (sure, they could still have creepers, but Sam wasn’t bothered about them). Gas stations had gotten pretty familiar, even with the open air and unknown dudes around. It never took Sam long anymore to warm up to a motel room—he even liked to go search for the ice vending machine, or to the lobby to collect fliers for local maps and attractions. And now drugstores, too, had achieved an officially non-threatening status, somewhere Sam didn’t blink twice before entering.  
  
Which was awesome, since drugstores were like miniature grocery stores (still not among Sam’s favorite places, though he could get through it if sufficiently distracted with another goal), packed with roadtrip food, bathroom stuff, first aid supplies—basically everything a couple traveling hunters could need, at least when things were going all right.  
  
Sam had a list, of course, torn out of his notebook, with what they needed to restock. Most of the stuff was in the health and first aid aisles, so he headed that way while Dean browsed boxes of hats, gloves, and scarves, next to the Christmas garlands and ornaments already crammed into all the shops and public squares. He found a couple good hat candidates: one navy blue with a thin red band, and one forest green that Dean would never ever admit aloud he thought might look really damn good with Sam's hazel eyes.  
  
He found Sam standing still in one of the health care aisles, looking at a long rectangular box in his hands, no doubt checking out the ingredients for anything that seemed too suspicious.  
  
“Hey, Sam, whaddaya think of these?”  
  
Sam jumped, a dramatic full-body flinch like he hadn’t done in weeks, and almost dropped the box before thrusting it back onto the shelf with both hands. He didn’t pause to straighten it with the others, like he had unfailingly done every other time, before turning to hurry past Dean. The way his chin tucked close to his chest did not quite conceal how his flaming red his face was. Not at all like the flush in the Impala, but guilty-as-hell red, the kind that bordered too fucking close to shame.  
  
Disconcerted, Dean turned to watch him disappear toward the front of the store. He was about to follow, but he couldn’t help glancing toward what Sam had shoved away from him as though it had suddenly blistered his fingers. He couldn’t help either the hopeful, optimistic thought that maybe Sam had a budding curiosity in lube and condoms that they could chat about at some point—  
  
The purple box, crooked on the shelf, read  _Scar Gel_.  
  
He understood, in a fraction of a second, comprehension sucker-punching him in the gut like a malevolent spirit, knocking out his breath. It took him a few seconds to recover, dragging air into unwilling lungs, to remember that Sam was waiting at the front of the store. Sam needed him. His hand still gripped the two hats.  
  
He found Sam looking fixedly at a gum display, arms crossed tight in front of his chest. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean said, before he got too close, and wasn’t surprised when Sam jumped again, though it wasn’t as violent as before. Sam still didn’t look up, but he sidled an inch closer to him, and Dean stepped next to him before reaching out, slowly, to rest his hand on Sam’s back. “I, uh,” he began, and twitched up his hand. “Found some hats.”  
  
Sam nodded, but that was all. Dean couldn’t exactly recall the thrill of hat selection that he’d felt just a minute before, so he took them both up to the counter. They’d probably need them both sooner or later, anyway. Who knew when Sam might want another hat-decoy.  
  
He knew he probably should say something. He ought to tell Sam that he had nothing to be ashamed of, that Dean couldn’t be any happier or like him any more than he already did even if Sam could make them go away. That Sam didn’t have to cover up or conceal a thing, when it was just them.  
  
But he didn’t think Sam wanted to talk about it, now. Not when he looked like he’d been caught doing something embarrassing, something he had no right to be doing or even thinking about, and that thought made both Dean’s heart hurt and his fists clench in anger. Fuck, Sam had the right to anything, and if he wanted something that wiped away the marks those sadistic ratfucking bastards had put on him, he should have it. But even without a close look, Dean had the feeling that whatever was in that purple box wouldn’t have been enough for the damage inflicted on Sam’s skin. Maybe Sam had realized that too.  
  
~  
  
It was cold outside, though not any colder than it had been before. Not nearly as cold as Nevada winter, the days and nights Sam had known, standing for roll call in the bitter dawn when the thin light offered no heat. Sam had a warm hoodie under his jacket now, thick jeans and snug shoes, and Dean had just bought him  _two_ more hats. Even though he didn’t think he was supposed to wear more than one at once.  
  
This was nothing like the cold of Freak Camp, but Sam couldn’t stop a light, steady tremble as he got back into the Impala, even when he pressed his hands tight between his knees.  
  
Dean had seen what Sam had been looking at. Sam knew that for certain, and he couldn’t fight the sick twist of hot shame writhing inside him.  
  
He hadn’t felt it when he first picked up the box. He’d felt curiosity, interest, maybe even a hopefulness he couldn’t acknowledge. He didn’t know what the contents promised, what the real-product could do, but if it could be something that wouldn’t make Dean look so sad or so angry when he saw Sam’s arm or back or chest, or when he ran his hand up and down over a thin T-shirt covering Sam’s back. Maybe this was something that could help.  
  
But then he’d heard Dean’s voice, and just like that, the switch flicked on like a light, and he’d  _realized_ what he was doing. More specifically, he realized exactly what the Director would say, if he stood where Dean was and saw  _Sam_ , a worthless little freak with his dirty hands on something like that, thinking what he had been right then. And Sam shivered because he couldn’t stop imagining exactly how the Director would teach him,  _remind_ him (reminders were the worst lessons) that a freak did not deserve to have the markings of so many lessons diminished. The markings were the only worthwhile part of him, both the worst and the best part, as they were evidence that he had  _learned_ during the years he’d been allowed to live. They were a testament to the countless times he’d fucked up and been  _corrected_. Sam shouldn’t  _want_ to hide them, he should grateful for the chance to show them to anyone who glanced his way.  
  
That’s what the Director would say. But not what Dean would say, and that was what mattered.  
  
Dean kept stealing worried glances at him, and he’d cranked up the heat twice. He was talking now about the Mexican restaurant he’d been dying to try, then maybe they could get some hot chocolate before bed, and Sam nodded jerkily, because he couldn’t speak yet. Not when the Director felt so close, just behind Sam’s shoulder. He hoped Dean would sit next to rather than across from him at dinner, that he’d let their legs touch and his arm would wrap around Sam’s shoulders until the food came.  
  
Then that night, in the dark of the bed, Dean would pull him close. Sam knew he would. Dean would touch Sam’s back despite the scars that disgusted him, because he didn’t know that those marks meant that Sam was the best monster he could be.  
  
He wanted to erase what Dean saw as defects so that Dean would always look at him like he was perfect (like a _real_ , because he was a real in the ways that counted with Dean and Bobby and Pastor Jim), so he wouldn’t look so sad when he saw Sam’s back, but deep down where his bones could still feel the impact of the Director’s switch, the idea of wearing bare, blank skin terrified him. He wasn’t sure who he’d be—amorphous, unbound, indiscriminately and perilously toxic to all who came too close—without the Director’s education marking out the boundaries of who he was.


	19. Faith and Future at the 2nd Street Coffeehouse, by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, a little bit after Chapter 24: Dean snaps a photo to prove a point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy third anniversary of the conception of Freak Camp!

They’d checked out that morning from their motel on the outskirts of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but a few hours later found them still dawdling inside the city limits. Sam had heard about a restaurant for lunch that claimed to have the best burgers and pie in the state, so they dutifully went to verify the claim. Dean allowed that it was pretty good burgers and pie, maybe the best in Arkansas, but it had a hell of a lot of competition from the other forty-nine states.  
  
Afterward, they walked to a nearby park, just for a last chance to stretch their legs before getting into the Impala. The park wasn’t as pretty now as it would have been in summer, the trees’ branches stark and thin as undressed bones and the grass dead underfoot, but the quiet of the park and crisp air still had an appeal. Sam seemed lost in thought for most of the walk, but as they turned back toward the Impala, he pointed to a coffee shop at the end of the block, and they angled that way instead.  
  
The coffee shop was jam-packed on the December afternoon, but Sam just shrugged and smiled to Dean’s inquiring look, so they waited their turn for their hot chocolates, then managed to extricate themselves outside, where they sat down at one of the deserted metal patio tables.  
  
“I’m telling you, Sam, she was totally checking you out.”  
  
Sam scoffed, shaking his head with the wide, amused smile that meant Dean was being particularly ridiculous. “She was just being nice, like she was to everyone. It’s part of her job, you said.”  
  
“Dude, trust me, she was not looking at everyone the way she looked at you.” Dean eyed him once over, and Sam flushed, fiddling with the to-go lid on his cup. This was nothing like the nervousness Sam used to have over being watched, though; this was a Sam who knew that Dean was  _admiring_ him, who knew how much Dean wanted to lean over and kiss the hell out of him, right now, where everyone in the shop and on the street could see. “It’s gotta be the hat,” Dean decided, finally. “You’re pretty goddamn irresistible in that thing.”  
  
Sam self-consciously tucked back the fringe of his bangs, under the band of his dark blue beanie. His cheeks were still redder than they had been in the park. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lots of people wear these and you don’t find them irresistible.”  
  
Dean sighed and leaned forward to catch Sam’s hand, threading their fingers together. “That’s ‘cause no one else pulls off looking so freaking adorable in one like you do. Trust me on this, okay?”  
  
Sam was still smiling, affection mixed with incredulity. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you jumped through that window?”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “Seriously. Look—” He tugged his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. “We’ll take photographic evidence right now, so an impartial judge can tell us exactly how cute you are. Even compared to me.” He pushed his chair closer to Sam’s, one arm circling Sam’s shoulders as he leaned close.  
  
They hadn’t taken a ton of photographs since the initial, painful ones for Sam’s ID cards. Dean wasn’t as able to get a read on Sam’s body language through the layers of winter clothes, but from what he could see of Sam out of the corner of his eye, Sam looked okay. A little shy, as he turned his face to Dean’s shoulder, but okay.  
  
Dean pulled his cheekiest grin as he snapped the photo, then turned the phone around for them to see. It was fucking adorable, even more than Dean had hoped—Sam’s smile was not quite at maximum wattage as he leaned against Dean, but it was a true smile, one Dean never took for granted on any given day. There was real color in his face, apart from the cold and Dean’s teasing, and he looked healthy and alive and yes, fucking  _cute_. There wasn’t a teenage girl for miles around who shouldn’t swoon for the chance of a date with him.  
  
“What’d I tell ya,” Dean said against Sam’s ear, and felt Sam shiver before nuzzling back against him.  
  
“I like it,” Sam admitted, bringing his hand up over Dean’s to hold the phone too. “Though I don’t think I’m the cutest one there.”  
  
Dean snorted in dismissal. “Yeah, you think so? Let’s see what Bobby has to say about that.”  
  
“Dean!” Sam exclaimed, mortified.  
  
“Yep, he’s our impartial judge,” Dean said, thumbing through the very short list of contacts for Bobby’s name. “He knows what’s up.”  
  
Sam made an inarticulate sound of protest, kicking his heels against the pavement as he buried his face in his hands. A moment later, he re-emerged to ask pleadingly, “You didn’t actually send it to him, did you?”  
  
Dean showed him the message, and there was the photo. Sent without text.  
  
Sam’s shoulders sagged in relief, and he leaned back against Dean’s shoulder. Dean settled his arm behind Sam, elbow angled so he could work his fingers in between the beanie and the collar of Sam’s winter coat, against the nape of Sam’s neck. They stayed like that until their cups were empty, then stretched to their feet.  
  
Dean checked his phone and snorted when he saw there hadn’t been a response. “Old man probably can’t figure out the buttons on his phone.” But he didn’t really mind; checking the phone had just been an excuse to look at the photo again. Every time he saw it, it was like a fucking 4th of July parade and fireworks show was going off inside of him. He was going to find out from Sam, who’d memorized that little operating manual with his genius brain, how to put the photo onto his home screen, so he could see it every time he opened his phone.  
  
Because that, right there—Sam’s smile, the color and curve to his face, and yeah, his  _closeness_ to Dean, too—that was everything. Fucking everything that Dean had been striving for, these past six months or longer. His whole life. And Bobby would see it, too; Bobby, who knew better than almost anyone (everyone except John) how much of a fuck-up Dean was, who had even warned Dean he’d be better off lowering his expectations with Sam.  
  
But here was the proof that Dean had done something right, and not just something—the most important thing he’d ever be able to do. This, he hadn’t screwed up. And after coming this far, he could believe he wasn’t going to screw it up, either. They’d have bad days again, sure; Dean would put his foot in it and bring Sam to tears or a panic attack or both, and Dean would have to punish himself with alcohol poisoning that would leave him useless for a fully day afterward, but it wouldn’t be world-ending in the way he used to fear.  
  
Still smiling like the world’s biggest sap, Dean caught Sam’s hand, tugging him around to face him. “Hey, Sammy.”  
  
Sam cocked his head, bemused but happy. “Yeah, Dean?”  
  
Dean traced Sam’s jawline with his knuckles, stopping at his chin. “The barista may get to check you out, but I’m the lucky bastard who gets to do this.” And he kissed Sam, sweet and light like a promise on the lips; but Sam opened at once for something deeper, kissing him hungrily as his hands grabbed at Dean’s shoulders to pull him closer, and  _oh fuck yes_. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam’s back, holding him tight, and neither gave a damn who saw.


	20. Written Into the Skin: by Brosedshield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not Sam’s first tattoo, but it is the first he accepts willingly (or how Sam gets his anti-possession tattoo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to whereupon and lavinialavender for their awesome beta. This is MUCH better than it was. Lavinia and I had vague plans to have this moment actually in a Chapter after the boys started hunting, but it never fit right and the next thing we knew we were far past the appropriate spot. Hope you enjoy the timestamp version!

Dean’s ended up with funny ideas after head trauma in the past (the time John and Dean had to drive an hour and ten minutes for malts and a fried egg remains the most memorable that didn’t require an ER visit), but the jump from getting thrown through a wall to thinking that Sam really needed a new tattoo actually made sense, or as much as cases with poltergeists make sense: things get tossed around, memories are jogged loose. Or maybe it was just the first time a boy had stared up at Dean and Sam with overly bright eyes, holding one of their own machete blades with a familiarity that no ten-year-old should have. After that, one starts thinking about possession.  
  
Dean got his tattoo when he was fourteen. John had been hunting fairly steadily for almost a decade, and Dean had a good two years under his belt. Dean still doesn’t know what jogged the thought in John’s head, but when he came home after school one day (in Louisiana, Dean remembers that, and they’d actually rented a place by the month), John told him that they were going to get marked up.  
  
They went to a scrawny guy with dreads who took their cash and etched the familiar pentagram-and-sun into their skin, smooth and easy, as good as any ASC charlatan who lays claim to some skill with the needle.  
  
John’s tattoo got tested a week and change later, when the skin hadn’t even healed up completely. John walked away from that fight with bruised-blackened eyes, and nothing else in his head but his own home-grown demons.  
  
Dean’s never tested his. Never been tested. Except for the one time he woke up during the witching hour with the tattoo practically burning on his chest, literally fucking glowing. That remains the scariest fucking 3:15 a.m. he’s ever experienced, and he’s _still_ not sure what the hell was in that room. He just knows it was waiting for him to let down his guard.  
  
There’s never been anything inside him he hasn’t wanted. Dean fucking Winchester ain’t nobody’s meat suit. And sometimes, after thinking that, he rubs at the mark over his chest, knowing that bravado can get you killed, and sometimes irony will bite you in the ass.  
  
But Sam needs the tattoo. He should have had one, long before this, back when they just started this hunting gig, but demons aren’t common (though Dean’s heard enough about them, of course, to fill a neat book of horror stories) so it’s not something that comes to mind right off the bat. Then again, with a kid as smart as Sam, maybe he doesn’t have to worry as much about the obvious things (he doesn’t have to waste his time shouting: “No, fuck, don’t let it _bite_ you, asshole!” like he’s had to do with more civilians than he can count on one hand), and focus more on the things Sam won’t ask for, the things that it wouldn’t occur to him that he deserves.  
  
They look for that same old guy first, the one with experience marking up Winchesters. He’s vanished in the wind. Dean’s not sure what he expected. It’s damn near seven years since he got marked and there aren’t that many artists who’ll attempt an anti-possession tattoo without notifying or being authorized by the ASC. There are even fewer who are any good. Dean may not have actually seen a demon, but he’s seen the aftermath of one taking over a guy who thought he was protected by his cheap knock-off design. Turns out that demons like to excise an anti-possession tattoo when it’s not good enough to keep them out. And as creatures of spirit, they don’t really need to breathe after they cut it out. Dean had never before seen anything breathing, laughing, talking, when he could see parts of its ribs shining through the edges of flesh.  
  
Sam finds another tattoo artist. Dean can’t help but laugh at that, all the while he’s fucking impressed. His kid is so damn good with research that it makes him wonder where he learned it, or if it’s an innate gift, just another thing that makes Sam Sam. They drive through the night to get to the guy’s shop.  
  
Dean tells Sam that it’s going to hurt. His tattoo itched for two weeks, and only John barking “Leave it alone!” was enough to stop him from clawing it out of his skin (that and knowing how important it was; he may have complained, but he did understand). He describes the needle going in, the sound of the machine, the disinfectant smell, and by the end he’s feeling a little nauseated himself, and Sam has this pinched look in his eyes that means he’s bracing himself for something unpleasant but necessary.  
  
They don’t make an appointment, it’s not that kind of place. They just walk in and the artist is cleaning his tools.  
  
This one is an old black man, narrow glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He has spirals and interlocking symbols, dragons, beasts, and vines growing up his arms. He looks up and frowns at them, hands stilling on his supplies. “Can I help you?” It’s less a polite service question, and more a presentation of doubt. _You look like you’re in the wrong place, boys._  
  
Dean tugs his shirt open, showing off the protection high on his chest. “Can you give my friend one of these?”  
  
The artist peers for a moment, and then raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know, can I?”  
  
This time the question is addressed to Sam.  
  
~  
  
“Y-yes?” he answers.  
  
“It’s not a question of ability, you see,” the artist says. “It’s a question of willing and way.” He adjusts his glasses and averts his gaze. “I’d never take from a man the gift of being more than himself. But nor would I deny him the right to that lonely silence which is the heart of being human.”  
  
Sam blinks. He wouldn’t have thought having someone else in your head could be something that anyone would want.  
  
Dean frowns. “You telling me there are fre—fools out there who actually _want_ to be possessed?”  
  
Sam thinks of the terrified quiet and the screaming memories in his own head. He thinks of something, anything, sharing that space with him, peeling back layers of thought like shifters peeled off old flesh during a change. He shudders.  
  
The artist shrugs. “I don’t ask questions about motivation. I just know the score.”  
  
“I w-want that,” Sam says. “To be alone, a hu-human.”  
  
Sam does want that. Not just the safety from possession that Dean offered, though that is a great gift, and something that he had never thought to fear until Dean brought it up. Then Sam felt sick that he could have been caught, his body used by not just his normal freak nature, but by a separate evil, to hurt Dean or others as he screamed from within it. But he wants the mark now that the artist described. Being human. He would be lonely forever (or at least lonely at Dean’s side, because he wouldn’t have a life without him) if it meant that he could be as sure of his humanity, his _reality_ , as Dean is with every breath. He wants safety, and he wants humanity, and he wants this mark that is like Dean’s. Like a hunter’s.  
  
Freaks don’t wear the pentagram-and-sun. Why would they need it? Generally, monsters gain no sustenance from monsters, only from the human prey from which they feed and reproduce alike. Hunters care about possession, hunters have to worry that what they are and who they want to be will be consumed by the consuming Other. Some civilians would get the tattoo, those more careful or more afraid after realizing there was more in the dark than their fears, but amulets were more common, good luck charms both ASC-approved and not. More often than not, though, the sigil was a hunter’s mark.  
  
Sam wouldn’t want to be identified as a hunter, not with the men who had hurt him and laughed (maybe because he was a freak, maybe just because they liked it; Sam has doubts, now, that all of them had hated him for the right reasons). Dean had been the sole exception.  
  
But in the last month he's learned for himself what hunting is _supposed_ to be. Now, the fear isn’t for himself, but that they won’t be in time to save the next reals marked as prey. Now he feels the relief when a monster is put down (not tortured, but given that final peace that monsters like himself had dreamed of, in camp), and the shock of receiving the survivors’ gratitude. It had amazed him, though it made sense that that was what hunting was to Dean. Sam would never have dared—or wanted—to be a normal hunter, but he wants to be a hunter _like Dean._  
  
Dean and the artist haggle on a price, but not too hard, and soon Sam is leaning back on the roughly covered chair, bits of stuffing showing through the edges of the worn fake leather. Dean opens Sam’s shirt (it would have been different and hard to sit still while the other man touched him, uncovered him for the prospect of pain, and Sam is grateful that he doesn’t have to try). He put fresh tape over the number across his collarbone that morning, but the tape is clearly visible from up close and does nothing to hide the scars around it. The artist just raises his eyebrows and asks, “Anything I should know?”  
  
When Dean shakes his head and puts another twenty on the neat pile of agreed-upon cash, the old man just stands, snaps his rubber gloves, and gets to work.  
  
It’s not Sam’s first tattoo, but he doesn’t remember when the numbers that define him were engraved into his skin. He does remember other times, other needles slid under his skin, but this is nothing like that pain of nerve-points and hot steel. Dean told him this would hurt, and Sam braced himself, but this needle riding over his skin is nothing but a smooth buzz and pain so light as to be hardly a pressure.  
  
Sam can feel Dean’s hand more clearly, clenching his on the opposite side of where the artist is at work. Dean is more nervous than Sam. Maybe before, Sam would have been worried, but he has no doubts now that this is something he will survive, and something that will make him better.  
  
He continues to hold onto Dean’s hand, holding on and closing his eyes, because he likes the feeling of being anchored, the need that he can feel in Dean’s almost desperate grip. He doesn’t need the support to keep his mind from the pain (pain so negligible that he could laugh, and he does, almost, when the needle lifts away for the old man to have a sip of something clear enough to be water from a solid stone jug), but he likes the feel of Dean’s hand in his.  
  
“I thought you said it would hurt,” Sam says at the second break, smiling up at Dean’s pinched green eyes.  
  
Dean’s eyebrows raise. “It doesn’t?”  
  
“Not really,” Sam says. He doesn’t add that it’s nothing compared to what he’s felt, where he’s been. He doesn’t think he needs to.  
  
“Oh. Well, awesome.” This time Dean’s smile relaxes a little, and Sam squeezes his hand.  
  
This mark is like Dean’s. It makes him different than he was—not just protected, but a protector. More hunter than hunted (though he will not say that too loudly, lest the ASC ever hear). As the needle leaves him marked once again, in a way he chooses, Sam feels that he can breathe more deeply (even though he’s avoiding that, so as to not disturb the lines).  
  
After another hour, the old man sits back with a pleased sigh. He rubs a hand across his back and begins putting his materials away, each tool set deliberately in its place.  
  
“That’s it?” Dean asks. He’s eyeballing the tattoo, and Sam, who can’t really look down and get a good look, tries not to block his view.  
  
“It’s not the Mona Lisa, but it’ll do what you need of it,” the artist says, not taking his eyes from his tools. The he shifts his gaze to Sam. “You were a good subject. If you ever want another, I would be honored.”  
  
“I don’t think we’ll be back anytime soon,” Dean says. “No offense, but I hope we don’t need this one.”  
  
The old man looks at him, a glare sharp behind his glasses. “Not all ink is in self defense,” he snaps. And then pauses. “Though the very best is done in defense of the self. You know what I mean?”  
  
Sam nods. He does. He is, perhaps, grateful in this moment that he has the mark already, suddenly not sure what the old man before them really is, but he does understand.  
  
This is the only mark on his body that he has chosen to put there. That he has accepted and sat still for not because of the promise of future pain but because he made a choice. He could maybe do that again. But, as Dean says, no time soon.  
  
They have freaks to hunt and people to save and maybe someday Sam will know more clearly what he is. And then, it might indeed be an honor to have that written across his skin, taking the place of so many scars.


	21. The More You See: by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Nine: the missing sexytimes scene after Sam's 17th birthday. With some angst, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Brose for the edits and feedback!

For Dean, few pleasures competed with waking up with nothing between his skin and sheets, next to a hot babe, after a hell of a fun night. And nothing in all his experience topped Sam as the hot babe.  
  
They’d gotten back to the hotel after dinner at a pretty sweet pizza place, Dean barely buzzed from a few beers but high on Sam, like Sam was on him, both of them laughing at nothing and way more handsy than usual, in the Impala and on the elevator up to their room. Sam actually pushed Dean against the wall—or, okay, Dean was already kinda leaning against it, but Sam leaned against  _him_ , pressing his weight into Dean as he kissed him, like there was no way he would ever let him go, it was definitely the hottest thing ever.  
  
Until the elevator dinged as they arrived at their floor, and Sam stepped away, like he worried someone might see and  _care_ or something. But no one had been outside the elevator, and Dean had tugged Sam into their room, where they didn’t have to worry about anyone else.  
  
He’d done his best to convince Sam to try one of the tiny bottles of liquor in the minibar, since it was his birthday and all, but Sam was adamant about  _not for another four years_ , and whatever Sam wanted was great. Especially when what Sam wanted most was  _Dean_.  
  
They’d crashed onto the bed together, tugging off each other’s overshirts—and once they started, it was hard to stop. Dean recalled mumbling something like, “So fucking hot, Sammy baby, wanna see all of you,” and Sam shivering in response, his fingers digging under the waistband of Dean’s jeans and boxers to pull them down, down.  
  
Dean had his hand around Sam’s cock, and Sam had his hand on Dean’s, and they didn’t stop kissing except to moan and whisper senseless yet perfect expressions of appreciation, of desire, until they came. Then Sam’s warm body curled into Dean’s, their legs locked in a tangle, and Dean couldn’t stop touching his skin—he didn’t even have to stop and think about all the depressions and furrows under his hands, because Sam was here with him, breathing easy against Dean’s shoulder, already asleep. And that meant Dean could sleep, too.  
  
He woke now, lazily comfortable, ready to pull Sam against him and wake him by kissing his shoulders and neck (guaranteed awesome way to start the day)—but Sam was already awake. He wasn’t lying next to Dean, but sitting at the end of the bed, pulling on his shirt from last night. He’d already found his boxers, Dean realized.  
  
He sat up. “Dude, what’s the rush? You going somewhere?”  
  
Sam looked up at him, startled and a little guilty. “Nowhere.” He wiggled back up to where Dean was, facing him but clothed.  
  
Dean blinked at him slowly. He wasn’t equipped for this conversation before coffee, but he couldn’t just let it go, either. “What’s up with this?” He plucked at the edge of Sam’s shirt between his fingers. Not exactly a smooth approach, so sue him.  
  
Sam shrugged his shoulders, looking a little abashed. “I, I thought…” He bit his lip.  
  
Dean sank down slowly onto his elbow, watching Sam’s face, trying to feel his way along blind. He should be better at this, considering how much practice he’s had. “Last night wasn’t good for you?” He tried to make the question as neutral as possible, even though it would have been a colossal fuck-up on his end if he’d been too out of it to pay attention to  _Sam_.  
  
“It was,” Sam said at once, and the cold clogging Dean’s heart eased. “I just, I thought—when you woke up…” He trailed off again.  
  
Dean lifted his eyebrows, incredulous. “You thought what—I wouldn’t want to see you?”  
  
Sam didn’t answer, but the rising color in his cheeks gave him away.  
  
“Dude.” Dean dragged a hand over his face, trying to find the words. “Everything I say to you at night is true in the morning too, okay? But, look—” Fuck, this was a minefield, like everything past PG still was for them sometimes. “You don’t ever  _gotta_ be—if you’d ever, ever rather keep your clothes on, anytime, that’s cool, all right? I’ve got zero problems with that. You know the last thing I want is anything you’re not okay with.”  
  
“I know,” Sam said softly, and that eased Dean’s tension more than anything else had. He sighed, dropping down onto the mattress. Then Sam said, “But you don’t always like seeing them. Sometimes it makes you sad. I didn’t want that to be the first thing you saw in the morning."  
  
Dean winced internally. He knew he’d given Sam cause to think that, so he took a minute to think how to fix it. “I like looking at you, Sam. You—all of you—is way more important, matters more than anything on the surface.” He slid a hand under Sam’s shirt, to rest against Sam’s furrowed back. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I think you’re sexy. And you’re way hotter without your clothes on.”  
  
Sam’s smile widened. A little shyly, he said, “You, too.”


	22. San Diego Zoo: by whereupon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two, after Chapter 24: Dean takes Sam to the San Diego zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whereupon gave me permission a while back, on more than one occasion, to post this for her, even though it's incomplete (though it reads pretty well as a complete story now). It's one of my favorite stories in the entire 'verse and feels incredibly important to me (not to mention having one of my favorite sexytimes scenes that any of us have written; it feels the truest). It also explains why we had that LJ comm banner with the giraffe for a long time.
> 
> The timeline for it is a bit squiggly; it's definitely several months before where we currently are in the story. I would set it after Chapter Twenty-Four (i.e., Sam's first orgasm), but not very long after at all. This is basically if they went straight to California after that chapter.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.

The zoo doesn't have cages, not like he'd expected. Not that he hadn't done his research -- oh, God, he had, hours spent on a computer that hates him, typing queries with two fingers into the search bar, trying to find something good. Trying to find something that wouldn't surprise them, wouldn't leave Sam shattered and leave him hating himself for the rest of the day, trying not to look at Sam because every time he did, Sam would think Dean was demanding something, rather than apologizing, rather than making sure his mistake hadn't fucked them up irrevocably (as long as Sam is still here, as long as he is still here with Dean, he isn't in Freak Camp, and some days, that's the best Dean can hope for), and would accordingly force his mouth into that horrible smile that would clash terribly with his drawn-in posture and hunted eyes, with the way he'd flinch at the slightest sound. Hypervigilance, Dean knows, and yeah, he grew up with it, to a degree, and isn't entirely free of it himself, but that doesn't make it any easier, each time, to watch Sam panic and freeze and try to rebuild himself before he thinks Dean will notice.  
  
So, yeah, Dean did his research, and knew exactly what to expect, but somehow, actually being here, actually  _seeing_ it, he's still surprised, maybe because so often in his line of work, things are never what they seem; there's always some nasty surprise waiting to rip out your lungs, slice your throat or eat your liver. But this isn't  _work_ , this isn't hunting, and it's real in a way that he hadn't expected, because well, it's  _real_. Tangible. Having stood in line (trying to maintain a balance between giving Sam room to breathe and physically inserting himself between Sam and the shrieking kids who kept jostling them, all while not making it obvious to Sam that he could see  _right through_  Sam's carefully-measured breathing and the way the muscles in his jaw kept twitching) and paid the admission fees (exorbitant, if this had been for him, but it's for Sam and thus there is, quite literally, no price he would not have paid), they are standing now in the wide walkway between a row of gift shops and a weird forested-pool thing in which flamingos, well-used to the pedestrian traffic, stand Zen-calm, ignoring the tourists snapping their photos, focusing instead on whatever it is flamingos think about.  
  
If Dean wanted to, he could touch them. He'd get his boots wet, sure, and they'd probably scatter the instant he touched the water, but there's nothing really separating him from them; they are not caged.  
  
They're free.  
  
They're free, but they are not flying away. Okay, he  _knows_ better than to think that they are  _entirely_ free, that the zoo doesn't have  _some_ way to ensure that they stay in place, but they aren't behind bars. There is absolutely nothing to make it look like they are being kept against their will. There's absolutely nothing, as far as Dean can tell (though he's been so fucking wrong in the past), that will remind Sam of -- anything.  
  
It takes a second for him to realize that this feeling is that of dread dissolving, and that the thing taking its place, as he lets the multi-accented background chatter and the hot California sunshine and the sight of Sam staring -- not open-mouthed, but huge-eyed, and almost  _reverential_ \-- at the ridiculous lawn-ornament birds sink in, is relief.  
  
Is  _happiness_.  
  
And then he's almost dizzy with it, lightheaded and glad for the protection afforded by his sunglasses, even though they don't mask  _at all_  what he's pretty sure is an immensely stupid grin spreading across his face.  
  
"Dean," Sam says, so quietly that Dean almost thinks he imagined it, constructed it from hope and memory, but Sam turns to him then, and his expression doesn't change at all from what it was as he looked at the birds, his eyes bright and his smile something that Dean will never forget. Its intensity catches him off-guard, and something sparks deep and low in his belly. He wants to spend the rest of his life making Sam smile like this, and for a moment, he lets himself imagine that  _he_ could ever be such a source of joy for Sam, that he could ever make Sam so incredibly happy. He could spend hours watching Sam like this, watching his elation, watching the sunlight slip across his face as though erasing all the bad things that have ever happened to him.  
  
He wants to lay out in the sun with Sam, watch Sam's skin turn bronze with it, brazen. He wants to make Sam flush beneath that color, and at that thought, he's both horrified at himself and grateful once more for the protection of his sunglasses, because that is not something he should think about, not  _yet_ , anyway, and certainly not  _now_.  
  
The breeze picks up slightly, bringing with it the faint smell of animal and the even fainter smell of the sea, rustling the leaves of the trees and tugging at Sam's hair, nudging his bangs back across his forehead so that they fall across his eyes. Dean wants to push them out of the way, wants to leave no part of Sam in shadow, but he doesn't let himself: the gesture would not be solely for Sam's benefit. Much as Dean wants Sam to feel the day's warmth on what skin can be exposed without drawing attention, he wants, too, to feel the curve of Sam's cheek beneath his palm, and he does not deserve that; he's wrong even to  _want_ it, want it without Sam initiating it, letting him know it’d be okay. Even if, by some miracle, Sam wouldn't know what Dean was thinking as his hand slipped across Sam’s skin, Dean still won't let himself do it.  _He_ would know.  
  
Sam's been through enough ( _more_ than enough, more than anybody should have to go through, especially somebody as good as he is). Dean's not going to ruin this for him.  
  
Sam looks back at the flamingos, looks away from Dean at last, and Dean is at once relieved and disappointed. Glad as he is that Sam won't see him for what he is, he misses the force of that smile, the thought that for an instant, he could be the center of Sam's universe because Sam  _wants_ him to be, not because Sam has never known anything else, anything good. Which is a disgustingly selfish thought, he reminds himself, and today is not about him. Today, like every day, is about Sam, is  _for_ Sam, so he shoves his hands into his pockets and says, "Hey, Sam, you wanna check out the monkeys?"  
  
***  
  
Everything Sam had expected falls away when he sees the flamingos. Only out of years of habit does he remain conscious of the sunlight, of the other (reals) people walking past behind him, of the itch of the tape over his tattoo catching at the fabric of his shirt, and even then, it's only peripheral.  
  
Taken off guard, and then transfixed, by the sight of the birds, the birds standing free, unchained, and exotic as any dream (any  _real_ dream, the kind with Dean in it, and the ocean, and the blue sky as infinite as the road ahead), he almost forgets even about Dean. It's only for a second, maybe two, a breath of the pure joy he associates with Dean alone, shocking in its intensity, and then he remembers that he was never meant to be here, that if not for Dean coming back, if not for Dean getting him out, he would have died never having seen these birds, never having even known that they existed as anything more than a myth.  
  
"Dean," he says, hardly more than a whisper and all he can manage, as though he's forgotten even how to speak. He doesn't trust himself to even attempt _thank you_ , and even if he  _could_ have said it, those two words would not have come close to the enormity of this, what he means. What  _it_ means, that Dean brought him here.  
  
That Dean did this for him.  
  
Most zoos, he knows, have cages. Their animals, the ones they keep there, live behind bars, or panels of reinforced plastic and glass. He’s seen them on TV, and he’s read about them, too. Most zoos do not allow their animals to move like this, do not allow them even the illusion of freedom.  
  
Considering how intent Dean was on them going to  _this_ zoo, this one and not any of the others that would have been closer, that  _were_ closer, those zoos all the way across the country, just off of roads branching from the highways they travelled, Sam knows Dean chose this zoo specifically. That he did this for Sam.  
  
That he not only did the research, that _this_ is most likely why he spent so many hours hunched over his laptop at motel tables, his glare and his exhaustion illuminated by the faint blue glow while Sam watched clouds or water or sometimes lions or butterflies on the television until Dean gave up and crawled into bed with him, sometimes waking him up if he’d accidentally fallen asleep already -- that he not only did the research, finding this zoo for  _Sam_ , but that, too, he drove all the way across the country to take him here, and paid the exorbitant prices to be allowed past the gates.  
  
Sam doesn’t think he has the words for how much that means, the right words, or enough of them, to convey to Dean how much this matters, and even if he did know them, he knows there’s no way he’d be able to say them aloud, all of them, coherently, in a way that Dean would be able to understand.  
  
He can say  _Dean_ , though, and that's always been more than enough, has been everything to him.  _Dean_ , he says, and he means the world, and then he turns to Dean, to make sure that this is still real, that Dean is still here beside him, and that Dean isn't angry about his temporary inability to speak.  
  
And that Dean knows, maybe. That Dean understands, the way he so often does, what Sam means, even when Sam can’t find the words to explain it, to make it real.  
  
And Dean is  _smiling_ , this enormous, amazing smile that makes him look younger than he is, younger than he has in such a long time, these minutes stretching into hours stretching into weeks in which everything Sam does, or doesn't do, registers on Dean's face, in the shadows beneath his eyes or the twist of his mouth like it hurts even to breathe, these days. Like every hour of every day, he grows older, grows wearier, aches more,  _hurts_ , and all because of Sam.  
  
Sam's made Dean old, older and more exhausted and sadder than he should ever be, but today, right now, he looks like he used to, when first he came to Freak Camp, before he ever knew Sam, before Sam could fuck up his life like all monsters do, cost him the things he loves.  
  
But Dean doesn't like when Sam thinks like that, and Sam doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize this moment, tarnish this for Dean, remind him of everything he's lost because of Sam. And Dean is smiling, and that means, Sam knows, that he understands.  
  
It seems wrong, smiling back at Dean, because it's what Sam  _wants_ to do, and that alone makes it monstrous.  _Dean would define it differently_ , he thinks, reminds himself, and that makes it okay, even if he doesn't understand why. One day, Sam will define it that way, too, Dean says, and that doesn't seem real, is almost unimaginable, but Sam trusts Dean more than anything, more than everything, so he believes.  
  
And right now, with Dean looking at him like this, like he understands Sam's happiness perfectly, and like he  _shares_ it, that's almost easy to do.  
  
***  
  
It's not that Dean hates fuzzy animals, it's just that once you've been attacked by a blood-hungry llama, it's kind of hard to feel comfortable around others of their ilk, even if they don't look particularly demonic. (Plus, herds of goats are totally chupacaba-bait.) But once he sees the look on Sam's face, it's not even a decision. He shoves a hand into his pocket, confirms the presence of two battered quarters, and then once more entwines Sam's fingers with his own.  
  
They're the oldest non-toddler people in the petting zoo, aside from parents, grandparents, legal guardians, whatever -- people in their forties, fifties, and eighties trying to alternately convince their kids that domestic wildlife aren't to be feared and convince the domestic wildlife that just because something looks like a shrieking, hairier-than-usual gremlin doesn't mean that it actually is one. The sight's kind of funny, until Dean feels Sam's hand tighten in his own and knows without needing to look that Sam will have paled, that he'll be looking down at the ground, trying to imagine himself elsewhere, or nowhere at all.  
  
"Hey," Dean says, quietly, pitched for Sam's ears alone. "I got you, Sammy." The words shouldn't be a comfort; Dean's promises have never been worth much, his best not enough even to get Dad to consider seeing Sam as anything other than a monster, but Sam relaxes -- minutely, fractionally, but that's more than happens on the bad days.  
  
They're close enough to the battered machines which, despite their appearance, dispense not candy but handfuls of crackers, hay, and small grain-looking things, that Dean doesn't have to ask Sam to move with him, doesn't have to explain where they're going (not that Sam would ask, he knows; Sam would go along with anything, and the thought is sickening). He can reach out with the hand that is not holding Sam's and deposit the quarters into the slot. "Put your hands down here to catch, okay?" he says, and Sam glances at him once, only for a second, this expression that by now Dean recognizes as a bare-edged plea to keep holding on. It'd be enough to crumple him, if he let it, so he swallows and pastes a smile on his face like there's anything he wants more in the world than to keep Sam by his side forever. "It'll be okay, I swear."  
  
Sam does as Dean said, but then, there'd never been any doubt that he wouldn't. Dean turns the knob and the machine dispenses goat-food into Sam's cupped palms; if Sam flinches with expectation, or at the sensation, he hides it well enough that Dean doesn't see.  
  
"You can feed them," Dean says. "And pet them. 'Cause it's a petting zoo. Okay? You just walk up to them and, like, stick your hand out, and then they eat what you offer them and you scratch behind their ears and totally make their day, I guess." He's rambling, but Sam isn't moving. Sam is standing frozen beside the vending machines with his cupped palms held before him, and oh,  _fuck_ , Dean has absolutely no idea what went wrong. What he said, or didn't say, what he's just done to Sam, and that means he has no idea how to begin making it right.  
  
He opens his mouth to say  _Sammy_ once more, to remind Sam that no matter what, he's got Dean, for what that's worth, he's out of Freak Camp and those bastards are never going to touch him again, but he closes it without speaking, seeing at last what's made Sam freeze.  
  
There's a small grey goat coming towards them, shiny black eyes intent on Sam. It's kind of a weird-looking thing; Dean doesn't get the appeal, but then, he's not exactly a goat person. Dean draws a breath, ready to do whatever it takes if the goat -- if something happens to Sam, and then the goat bows its head into Sam's hands, quick flicker of its tongue as it begins to eat.  
  
Dean watches Sam stop breathing, and he watches him start again. Watches the look of amazement spread across his face, the closest thing to holy Dean has ever seen.  
  
When the food is gone, Dean expects the goat to wander off, but it stays next to Sam, waiting.  
Sam reaches out, carefully, and his hand is shaking.  
  
He touches the top of the goat's head, and neither of them flinches. His palm rests there for a moment and then, carefully, he begins to pet it, to stroke the short fur. Small, hesitant movements, but the goat waits, patient, and eventually, Sam scratches behind its ears. It leans into the gesture, into Sam, and Sam, at last, smiles, this small, fragile thing that is somehow brighter than diamonds, the look of someone who's just been told that his heart doesn't have to be broken after all.  
  
"You made its day," Dean says, and even as something clunks heavily in his own heart, he is smiling, smiling, hard enough that it hurts, maybe hard enough to bruise; Sam turns to look at him and everything,  _everything_ , has been worth it, has been worth this.  
  
***  
  
Sam's mouth on his jawline is sweet and unexpected and brighter, somehow, than even the pink of the flamingos, than the sun which is bleaching the blue from the sky and turning the back of Dean's neck slowly red. An accident, Dean thinks at first, but Sam is hugging him still, and not cringing away, and Dean lets himself splay his palms flat across the planes of Sam's back, across the origami of his shoulderblades. He's too thin, even after this much time (which is not nearly time enough--), but getting better, and radiating heat, like all of today, every single good instant, good moment, of today, all at once, like he’s taken it all into him, and in doing so, it’s made him brighter. Stronger.  _Happier_.  
  
Tomorrow Dean will be sunburnt; he will tug his t-shirt off gingerly and smooth lotion onto raw skin, now that his dad isn't here to tell him not to bitch about something so minor, not to bother. Today he touches Sam with that same care, that same precision, that same restraint. He will not get ahead of himself. Sam is nestling his face against the curve of Dean's neck, and his breath is warm on Dean's skin. In the distance a staticky voice announces over the P.A. system the departure of a tour involving lions, and there is the chatter of monkeys. Neither of them moves. They have all the time in the world.  
  
***  
  
The sun's starting to set, apocalypse-red glow over the horizon, and the zoo will be closing soon. Already parents are dragging their children in the general direction of the exit; some of the children are being carried, having fallen asleep already. Dean can empathize, and swallows back the sudden sharp memory of being carried sleepy-warm out to the Impala, tucked into the backseat beneath blankets that smelled exactly like everything else in the car and beneath a jacket that smelled like  _Dad_ \--John, the jacket that’s in the trunk of the car now. Even Sam is beginning to drag his feet, despite how tightly he's holding on to Dean's hand, still, and despite the care he devotes to the now well-worn map clutched in his other hand. And that’s kind of a fucking miracle right there, that Sam’s actually showing exhaustion, that he’s actually letting Dean see how tired he is, that he’s actually fucking relaxed enough to let his guard down and not  _pretend_. "We can see the flamingos again, or we can see the tigers," he says, though, and Dean knows he’d stay on his feet for the duration of either, or of both, if time allowed.  
  
Dean entertains briefly the thought of coming back after-hours, of breaking them in so Sammy can see everything he missed, everything they didn’t get today, but god, he’s exhausted. And his kid is, too. And his kid deserves to see the goddamn zoo by  _daylight_ , see it like it’s meant to be seen, not to have to hide in the shadows, see only the nightglow of animal-eyes, and duck when the security guards come around.  
  
And no, it has nothing to do with how, if Dean gets any  _more_  tired, he might not have the energy to pick a lock. It’s about his  _kid_ , like always. Like it always has been, and like it always  _will_ be. Like it will be until Sammy tells him different.  
  
He tips his head back, relishing the way the motion stretches his muscles, and then looks over at Sam.  _Over_ , because Sam's stopped ducking his head for now, isn't cringing, isn't trying to make himself smaller than Dean, small enough that he might go unnoticed. He’s meeting Dean’s eyes, even, letting himself be that tall. "I was thinking," Dean says. "I know we were gonna head out tonight, but how'd you feel about maybe giving it another day? We could get a hotel, one a’ the nice ones,” and not just because they’re closest, but because his kid deserves that, and especially today; Sammy deserves to end the day in a comfortable bed, stay somewhere that’s got hot water and actual water pressure and lights that don’t flicker and burn out as soon as they flip the switch, “come back first thing in the morning, soon as they open. Get here before the crowds." Even though they aren't crowds, not by anyone else's standards, but Dean doesn't mind defining everything by Sam.  
  
He’s used to it, by now. Recalls, vaguely,  _dictionary of Dean_ , and thinks that it’s mutual, Sammy. Entirely goddamn mutual.  
  
Sam blinks, but doesn’t drop his gaze, keeps looking at Dean, right at Dean, and that’s every fucking victory in the world, right there. Right there in his kid’s eyes and how bright they are, even behind the scrim of his hair. Bright with the fading sun, all ember-hot, and with hope, Dean thinks, and god, Sammy, you shouldn’t have to  _hope_ for this, it’s no big deal, it’s  _nothing_. “Ar-are you sure,” he says, and swallows. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be too expensive? It cost a lot of money today, I added it up, and a hotel’d be even more...”  
  
It’s not a  _no_. It’s not a  _whatever you wanna do, Dean_ , or  _whatever you think is best_. Dean’ll take it.  
  
“Sure I’m sure,” he says, and slings the arm that Sam’s not currently holding, the hand that isn’t wrapped up in Sam’s, around Sam’s shoulder, bringing his kid in to face him, grounding him. Like there’s nobody but them left in the world, the map crinkling between the both of them. “But only if you wanna, you know? You wanna hit the beach or somethin’ instead, just say the word, right?”  
  
Sam swallows again, and licks his lips. His smile is hesitant, for a second, and then it flares so fucking huge and bright that Dean falls in love with this kid all over again, just like that. Wants so bad to kiss him, and oh god, so much more, but Sammy’s opening his mouth to talk, and Dean will wait. Will make himself wait. “Yeah,” he says. “That’d be good, if we could come back. If we came back tomorrow. That’d be -- I’d like that.”  
  
“Awesome,” Dean says, and waits a second, just until he’s sure Sam’s done talking, until he’s sure he’s not going to smother his kid’s words with his mouth, make Sammy think whatever he’s saying pales in comparison to what Dean wants.  
  
When Sammy doesn’t say anything else, just stands there looking at Dean like Dean’s the best thing ever, better than everything else he’s seen today, it’s only right, Dean figures. Because it’s mutual, and Sammy likes this best, being close to Dean. And having Dean’s arms around him. And having Dean’s mouth against his.  
  
On the good days, anyway.  
  
And today’s been one of the best of all.  
  
He kisses Sam and Sam’s tongue slipping into his mouth without hesitation is hotter than the fucking sunset, hotter than the heat on the back of his neck, red-blooming burn, hotter than anything else.  
  
***  
  
The noise of the freeway, constant California traffic, eleven at night and still the roads weighted and slowed with cars, is audible from their motel room; nothing new, it might as well be the background noise to Dean's whole life, how much of it has been spent in motel rooms like shabbier, shadier twins of this one, but he finds that he notices it more, now. Registers it, pays attention to it, because he knows that Sam will be doing the same thing.  
  
Dean's never been much for crowds -- they block the exits, provide too many potential targets, or prey, or victims of a miscalculated aim, and all those eyes make it harder to tell whether somebody's watching him, maybe with a knife at hand -- but he finds that he dislikes them even more, these days. They bother him on a different level, in a different way; they bother him because they bother Sam.  
  
You can't live with someone, love someone, without their world coloring the way you see your own; he only hopes that if he's having the same effect on Sam, it's in a good way; that Sam's able to overlook all of Dean's failings, all the weakness and fear, and somehow see only confidence, charisma and the easy swagger that comes from being a Winchester.  
  
Unlikely, that, but hey, that's what hope's for; it doesn't have to be rational.  
  
It seems rational enough, though, right now, as Sam opens the bathroom door, his hair shower-damp, spills steam into the room and smiles at him. It's not the bright-blinding one Dean's seen so many times today, but it doesn't need to be; Dean's not something new, not something for him to be surprised by, and this smile, though it's quieter, and not as wide, is Dean's alone, is both shadowed and lit with the history between them. He’s wearing a t-shirt, short-sleeved this time, leaving his arms bare; it’s nothing Dean hasn’t seen before, and all the same, that Sam is doing this before him, that Sam is leaving a part of him he hides from everyone else exposed, that he’s allowing Dean to see something that makes him so self-conscious, makes Dean swallow, hard.  
  
Yeah, the scars piss him off. Yeah, the scars do a hell of a lot more than piss him off; they make him want to kill things. Not  _things_ , but people. Specific people. With names and addresses and bank accounts full of the money they made doing this to Dean’s boy.  
  
The scars make him livid, oh  _fuck_ yes. But the fact that Sam’s not hiding them, not hiding them from  _him_ , that makes Dean’s heart do something stupid he’s going to pretend he isn’t acknowledging.  
  
"Did I take too long?" Sam asks, as he so often does; Dean has made a private vow that he will one day get to the point where the question no longer even crosses his mind.  
  
"No way," Dean says. Sam moves aside to let him into the bathroom, half-step, still close enough that their shoulders brush. Sam doesn't flinch, doesn't pull away as though in apology for being in Dean's way, maybe for _existing_ , and there will never be a day when Dean does not notice that, when he fails to appreciate it. "Be out in a minute."  
  
The shower spray stings a little, but it's not until he's about to tug the grey t-shirt over his head that he catches a glimpse of himself in the steam-fogged mirror, really notices the pink of his skin. By morning he'll be red and peeling and fuck, he should have thought about that. Should have noticed sooner, of course, but nothing had mattered besides Sam, besides seeing Sam so -- so  _radiantly_ happy, and a little sunburn's nothing compared to the thought of having missed out on even a moment of that.  
  
There's lotion in the medkit, though, which will help -- the medkit which is of course exactly where Dean left it, buried beneath dirty jeans at the bottom of his duffel; they weren't supposed to need it, this time. They shouldn't have needed it, except for how Dean's dumb as rocks sometimes, and it's not even such a big thing, this sunburn -- it doesn't even count as a  _wound_ \-- but it's going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow, and he doesn't want anything to get in the way of Sam having a good time.  
  
 _Man up_ , he tells himself sternly, and yanks the t-shirt down over his head, and okay, fuck, yes, that does kind of hurt, but he's not going to  _whimper_ about it. He's, like, the most badass hunter on the planet, save for Sam. (If Sam asks, that noise was the shower squeaking, or something more plausible. Whatever. He'll think of something.)  
  
Sam's sitting cross-legged on their bed, when Dean comes out; his forehead furrows slightly when Dean heads not for that bed but for the one with the duffels laid atop it, but he doesn't  _say_ anything, and Dean winces, careful to keep it from showing on his face. "Can you believe I managed to get sunburned," he says. Admits, because anything else would be too obvious a reassurance, and he knows that Sam hates needing to be reassured, hates especially when Dean knows it. "You do okay?"  
  
"Yeah," Sam says, and doesn't mention the protection afforded to him by his long-sleeved shirt, by the fact that he doesn't dare wear anything less revealing. Dean meets his eyes: they're both thinking about it, though. "I'm sorry I didn't notice," Sam says. "I should have asked if you were okay, or not made you spend so much time--"  
  
And Dean can hear the ghost of a stutter, beneath the words, the way they're coming faster and faster, and feels a stab of self-hatred in his stomach,  _idiot, you've ruined everything, a good day and you had to fuck it up_ ; he swallows past it and says, "You didn't make me do anything, Sam. I wanted to, okay? I had an awesome time, and this isn't anything. Plus it'll be fine in the morning, dude." It  _will_ be. Even if it hasn't healed, Sam won't have to know that. He forces a smile, shoves another pair of jeans aside, and where the  _hell_ is the medkit? He'd have sworn it was in here.  
  
"It's in mine," Sam says. Rustle of the blankets on the other bed, and then Sam's beside him. "You put it there 'cause you said it'd be easier to get to if it wasn't 'buried beneath a week's worth'a swamp-covered laundry.'" Dean can hear the quotes, wonders if Sam's doing it accidentally or if he might be, in addition to reminding Dean, _mocking_ him, and grins.  
  
"And I was right, too," Dean says as Sam produces the kit from his own miraculously-organized duffel. "Gimme the lotion, yeah?"  
  
Sam swallows. Flash of weird nervousness that has the bottom dropping out of Dean's stomach again and then he says, "You're not gonna be able to do it all by yourself. You could -- sit down, and I could." He gestures with the hand holding the bottle of lotion, shrugs, his shoulders drawing inward like he's afraid, like this was a risk, like he thinks Dean might turn him down.  
  
"So you're more organized  _and_ smarter than me, keep reminding me, why don't you," and Dean's tone is light as he prays to God, to fucking  _anything_ , that he didn't miscalculate, that Sam will take the words as they're intended and not as . . . not in the way he does, sometimes, other times, though less and less often, these days. Sam's shoulders loosen, he smiles -- quicksilver, and oh, mercury-deadly, what that smile does to Dean -- and Dean lets out a breath, lowers himself onto the edge of the bed; after a moment, Sam settles behind him. Dean moves gingerly, this time; if he flinches at the pull of his skin as he lifts his shirt, Sam will think it directed at him, even if inadvertently, as though the gesture were Sam's fault.  
  
Sam's hands on his shoulders are very warm, a sharp contrast to the chill of the lotion, and Dean can't help but shiver. Sunburn, he tells himself. Sunburn, and not Sam's touch, not Sam's hands pressed gently across his neck, down the slopes of his shoulders, thorough and so gentle as to be more a caress than anything else, and Dean should have expected that, should have expected this. Sam's afraid of hurting him, that's all; he thinks any more than the slightest amount of pressure will cause Dean pain. Because he  _cares_ about Dean, and wants to be nice to him, and  _trusts_ him, and Dean should keep that in mind.  
  
Sam trusts him to act like he ought, not to react like this is anything more than medicinal. He grits his teeth and tells his body that it sucks, that it is  _not listening_ , and Sam's hands still on his shoulders. Dean is terribly glad that Sam can't see his face at the moment.  
  
"Did I hurt you?" Sam says, self-recrimination already evident in his voice, and shit, that's Dean's fault. Because he couldn't act like a goddamn  _adult_ , like someone good enough for this, for Sam.  
  
"No," Dean says. "No, Sam, not at all. Thanks for, uh. Doing this." A pained smile out of habit, even though Sam won't be able to see it, and then he gets to his feet, reaches for the shirt discarded onto the floor and fumbles it back on. Clumsy, buying time -- but not enough.  
  
"I'm not done," Sam says; Dean waits a second, waits for him to continue, but that's all Sam says, all the protest he can manage to bring. Because he thinks that he  _did_ hurt Dean, that Dean wants to get away from him, and Dean swallows.  
  
"I know, Sam, I just, uh." He steels himself, a deep breath that isn't even close to being enough, and turns to Sam, Sam's eyes dark and vertiginous. He doesn't want to know what Sam sees in his own eyes, on his face; he's trying for blank, but he has the feeling he's failing miserably. "It's fine. I can get the rest in the morning. Let's get some sleep, huh?"  
  
Sam blinks at him. "Sunburn's a serious injury, Dean. It increases your chances of getting cancer."  
  
"Trust me, cancer's not big on my list of concerns," Dean says. Especially not at the moment. And any second now Sam's going to get that, going to see that, and Dean . . . so help him God, he doesn't want to watch Sam's face fall. Doesn't want to be there when it does, doesn't want to see when Sam realizes, because what if Sam decides that this whole zoo thing was an -- offering. Not a gift, but something to be repaid, and what if he thinks that the whole  _day_ was for this, what if he thinks that every time Dean looked at him, every time Dean grinned to see how happy he was, part of Dean was thinking about something like  _this_ \--  
  
Which Dean was, even if not  _every_ time, and that makes it worse.  
  
It frightens Dean, sometimes, how familiar he's gotten with the way Sam thinks. He misses when he didn't have to know all of this.  
  
Sam's still looking at him. Looking at his  _face_ , though, and that's something. Not much, but something. And then Sam gets up, unfolds himself from the bed, suddenly way too close to Dean. He's still not ducking, Dean notices distantly, notices in the way someone might, upon looking up and seeing a giant meteor hurtling straight for them, notice that the sky was really a lovely shade of blue today. They're eye to eye, and Dean can't think that's  _bad_ , because it means that Sam's not afraid, even on a subconscious, body-language level, but it means that Sam is looking directly at him, Sam is watching every hitched breath, is watching the slow blush Dean can feel creeping up from his throat.  
  
It means, too, that when Sam reaches out, very slowly -- because he never rushes, in moments like this, and  _fuck_ , this cannot be a "moment like this," this is Dean making a mistake and he should back the hell away _right now_  -- and touches Dean's shoulder, as gently as he had a minute before, and then leans in, also very slowly -- _excruciatingly_ slowly, Dean's brain adds unhelpfully, while also noting that that means Dean has plenty of time to avoid this, whatever  _this_ might be -- Dean is looking at him the entire time, and not once does he see the slightest bit of hesitation.  
  
Not that that means anything, necessarily.  
  
"Sam," he says, raspier than he should, voice like a dying man's cough. "This isn't, you don't gotta. Gimme a minute, I'll -- be in the bathroom, and then we'll go to bed. Uh, to sleep, fuck,  _no_ , I mean. Shit, I'm sorry."  
  
"Dean," Sam says, and Dean's pretty sure he's imagining that the word, that his  _name_ , is shaded with amusement. Wishful thinking, he tells himself, trying not to think about Sam's hand still on his shoulder, Sam touching him still, how Sam can probably feel the heat radiating off of him, how Sam surely knows what it means, what Dean means, because he’s a goddamn genius and because he knows  _Dean_. "I want, if it's okay, I want to." He swallows, and maybe it wasn't amusement a second before, Dean thinks, maybe it was  _arousal_ , maybe it was  _desire_ , and  _that_  is definitely wishful thinking.  
  
"Sammy," he says, and it's harder than it should be to get the word out, to get his kid’s  _name_ out, to think clearly. To think at  _all_ ; his blood's a dizzying rush in his ears, his blood and what his kid, his Sam, is doing to him. "What do you want, Sammy, you gotta tell me, I'm not gonna make you do anything, I  _won't_ , I swear, you don’t gotta, ever."  
  
"I want to touch you," Sam says, and Dean can feel, past his own body, the tremors in Sam's hand, delicate nervous tremble. He's not scared, though; there's nothing like fear on his face, in his goddamn gorgeous eyes. Assuming Dean knows what fear would look like on him at a moment like this, which he doesn't, has never seen it before, unless he does, has,  _is_ , unless this is it  _right now_ \-- "Can I?"  
  
"Oh Jesus fuck," Dean says, both a curse and a plea, and pulls Sam close. Closer. It doesn't count if it's just kissing, he tells himself, they've kissed before, kissed and made out, hot and heavy and needy and desperate, Sam like a craving, addiction, lighting up his veins, his blood, his cock. It's not anything new, he's not crossing any boundaries, breaking any rules, betraying either one of them ( _will you still be able to look at yourself in the morning, will you still be able to look at him_ \--) and Sam's mouth is open beneath his,  _against_ his because Sam is not ducking, making himself smaller; Dean feels the sharp ridge of his teeth as his hand tightens on Dean's arm and Dean's hand clenches in return, automatic and unthinking and instinctive, at the small of Sam's back, twisting in the fabric of his shirt.  _This is wrong_ , he reminds himself, as clearly and surely and certain as he can, which is hardly at all. And then,  _be gentle, at least_ , and he tries, oh God, he tries, tries not to kiss Sam like he's drowning, fighting for air and Sam is everything, his only chance at life; he tries not to kiss his kid like drinking him down deep, tries not to shudder when Sam's fingers slip at last, brazen and brave and so fucking  _amazing_ , Dean’s kid, beneath Dean's shirt, when his fingernails drag lightly across Dean's stomach (and when did Sam put his other hand on Dean, when did Dean get so tangled up in him, so that if either of them fell, they'd go down together, no chance of stopping it, and that might be a metaphor, sure as hell, but Dean’s never been one for that sorta shit and now is so not the fucking time to begin)--  
  
But every time he tries to go easy, to pull back, to not push so hard, so desperate, against his kid, Sam stops him. His mouth against Dean's, insistent, desperate, his tongue in Dean’s mouth so fucking  _hot_ when Dean lessens the pressure of their kiss, his palm on the side of Dean's jaw, keeping him from turning away, from finding an excuse, a  _reason_ , from ending this, whatever this is.  
  
Whatever it might turn out to be.  
  
 _Jesus fuck_ , Dean thinks again, and he can feel Sam's own cock, hard against his through what it turns out are two _extremely thin_  pairs of sweatpants,  _fuck_ the outsourcing of American manufacturing and how it's going to be responsible for his death any goddamn second now, Sam can feel his cock, too, no doubt about it, and it’s not exactly going to surprise Sam, what he does to Dean, how fucking much Dean wants him, but that doesn’t mean he should have to know like  _this_ , should have to be reminded exactly this way, but that at last is what allows him to let Sam push both of them down onto the duffel-free bed, how fucking hard  _Sam_ is, how hard Sam is for  _him_ , how goddamn much his Sam wants him and how he has never yet learned how to deny Sam what he wants, when it counts, and part of him knows he never will. They land hard, gracelessly, but then, they were hard already, and breathing hard already too; Dean barely notices the impact, so focused is he on the weight of Sam above him,  _on_ him, grinding down,  _wanting_ and taking and so damned unafraid to do so, to push against Dean, press hard against him, make it absolutely clear what he wants. Sam hasn't even touched him yet, not his cock, not like  _that_ , and he doesn't have to; when Sam gets his hands under Dean's shirt once more and slides the fabric up like he wants to lift it off, pull Dean out of it, like he wants Dean laid bare, something sparks, low and deep, in Dean’s belly, in his cock,  _oh fuck Sammy baby how fucking brave hot beautiful_  and Dean feels his hips jerk. He reaches half-blindly for Sam, pulling Sam's face to his, so that when he comes a second later, comes so fast like a kid all over again, comes in his  _pants_ , god _damn_ , what Sam does to him, how he comes messy and hot in the no-space between them, he rides out the whitenoise rush with Sam's mouth against his own, a kiss at once sweeter and more intense than any he has ever known before.  
  
He is, sometime later, aware that his shirt is rucked up, caught up around his chest; that his sweatpants aren't even  _down_ , God, what Sam does to him; and most importantly, that Sam is lying beside him -- no, scratch that, half on top of him still, head on Dean's chest, glint of his eyes when he sees that Dean's looking at him. "Fuck," Dean says, and it might not be his most eloquent moment ever, but that's okay, because he feels Sam's body shake with barely-suppressed laughter, and any time he can make his kid look like that, feel like that, it means he did something right. For once in his fucking life, he did something right, and in the most important way possible, because that’s what Sam  _is_ , the most important goddamn thing ever. "God, Sammy," and that's hardly better, words rough, sticking in his throat, but it's progress. "Are you still, I didn't mean to, you know, go. Like. That. Did you--"  
  
"When you kissed me," Sam says, whispers, words spoken into Dean's skin like an incantation, a blessing. Secret truth between them, a vow. And then, as though unsure, "I'm sorry."  
  
"Sammy," Dean says. Cards a hand through Sam's hair, his other lifting Sam's chin so that Sam's looking directly at him, no way to misinterpret what he's about to say. "Do  _not_ apologize for that. Ever. I'm  _glad_. It's a good thing. It makes me really fuckin' happy, okay?" Sam nods, once. Quick and somehow hesitant, though Dean thinks that might be the look in his eyes, the lamplit glint. "Hey, I need you to say it, okay? Tell me it's okay, if it is."  
  
"Okay," Sam says, his smile shy,  _new_ , but a smile still, and if his voice wobbles a little, that's okay, too. There'll be time enough to make it stronger.  
  
Dean leans up to kiss him again -- briefer, this time, because he's fucking exhausted and there'll be time enough, too, to do this again, if Sam wants to and  _only_ if Sam wants to. "What’d’you say we get some sleep for real this time? We gotta hit the road early, we wanna be first in line when it opens."  
  
"Yeah," Sam says, single word slurred a little as though in exhaustion, fucked-out bliss, but he doesn't make any move to get up, and after a few minutes, Dean can feel his breathing even out in sleep. They're not on the pillows, having crashed haphazardly across the mattress, and the lamps are still on, and yeah, okay, Dean's starting to notice the sunburn a little more as the flood of endorphins begins to fade, the flood of  _oh Sammy so fuckin’ good baby so fuckin’ hot_ , but that's okay. He can be comfortable here for a few hours, or for as long as Sam wants.  
  
He closes his eyes, one arm still around Sam, keeping him close.  
  
And he wakes, sometime in the very early hours of morning, with his arm bearing all of Sam's weight and his skin, as expected, itching like a  _bitch_. Sam mumbles a sleep-blurred protest when Dean eases out from beneath him, easing him gently onto the mattress, but he doesn't wake, not even when Dean pads away to find the lotion, which turns out to be wedged halfway beneath the other bed.  
  
It turns out, as Dean had expected, that he can apply the lotion to his shoulders just fine; sure, it's kind of awkward, but not impossible.  
  
Which, he thinks, Sam knew.  
  
He sets the lotion down -- on the bedside table this time -- and switches off the lamps. Sam hardly stirs when Dean gets back into bed beside him, tugging him up a little so that they’re slightly closer to the pillows, slightly less thrown at an angle with the heedless chaos of fucking desire across the bed. It's not until Dean's on the verge of sleep once more that he feels Sam roll over, rest his hand against Dean's, fingers caught around the leather of Dean's bracelet, twined as though to anchor himself, even in sleep; Dean moves his other hand reflexively to cover Sam's.  
  
In the morning, he thinks, or when they get back home, because zoos are unlikely places to find that sort of thing, he'll get Sam a bracelet of his own, leather light enough to go unnoticed, to be forgotten, most of the time, to never, not even for a moment, be reminiscent of restraints. They can anchor each other.  
  
***  
  
It's kind of a chick flick thing to do, Dean gets that. Actually, scratch that, it's a totally,  _completely_ chick flick thing to do. Good thing Dean's, like, just as totally and completely confident in his masculinity that it doesn't matter, and good thing, too, that Sam doesn't know what a chick flick is so that he can't make fun of Dean for this.  
  
Not that he would, even if he did know; not that he'd make fun of Dean for anything, ever, but Dean's not going to think about that right now. About other ways this could have turned out, if only he'd been smarter, paid more attention, been  _better_ , been what he should have been, what Sam deserved, and deserves still--  
  
Right. Not thinking about it.  
  
The shop's right across from the flamingos, and even though the zoo's not deserted, it's not crowded enough, either, that Dean worries any more than usual about leaving Sam on his own for a few minutes. He asks Sam, of course, before he does, and of course Sam says, no, I don't mind, I'm fine, Dean, I'm okay, but he's smiling, and it's a  _genuine_ smile, one that reaches up to his eyes, crinkles them at the corners, and the calm confidence in his voice sounds genuine enough, too.  
  
All the same, Dean doesn't have to do it. It's not, like, life and death or whatever (and Dean knows from life and death). It's just -- they'll be leaving in a couple of hours, they've already stayed some twenty-four longer than they'd planned to, and though Dean's so going to take Sam back here someday, maybe the next time they pass through somewhere (anywhere) in Cali, he . . .  
  
He wants Sam to have something to take with him, okay. Wants Sam to have something tangible to remind him about this, wants him to have something that's  _his_ , something other than memories, because memories are great and all, but sometimes they fade, and Dean doesn't want Sam to forget a minute of this.  
  
Plus, it's not like Sam's got an over-abundance of  _stuff_ , anyway. He could use a few more . . . things. Things, like people have. Not that Dean's one to talk, considering his most treasured possessions are a car, a gun, and a piece of paper verifying that he kept the single most important promise he ever made, and that's exactly why he wants more, wants  _better_ , for Sam.  
  
So he looks Sam in the eye once more (and isn't  _that_ something to be glad of, that Sam's looking him back, not shying away and ducking his head, and not even looking like the desire to do so has occurred to him), and touches his shoulder -- feeling bones still too easily; they're still more prominent than they ought to be, than Dean would like, but so much better than they were -- and lets himself, at last, lean in and brush his mouth against Sam's own. It's not a kiss, exactly, but it could very well turn into one, and he makes himself pull away before that can happen. (Is it his imagination, or does Sam look faintly disappointed, after?)  
  
There'll be time enough for that later; he has to do this while he still can.  
  
He's obscurely proud of the fact that he only looks back twice, crossing the thirty-odd feet between the flamingos and the shop. He wonders, in a vague sort of way, whether there was anything in the lease he signed about birds. There's probably room in the shower, and what the hell do flamingos eat, anyway? Birdseed? Giant birdseed? And are there even places to board flamingos when their owners go out of town?  
  
The shop, like the rest of the zoo, is hardly crowded -- thank God for bureaucracy and its tendency to keep the majority of civilized people out of his way Monday through Friday, at least -- and he finds what he's looking for fairly easily. He feels kind of stupid in the process -- a grown man, standing in the stuffed animal section of a souvenir shop, shifting through the piles of synthetic fur in an attempt to make sure he finds the best one -- but he's done more embarrassing things, whole scores of them, and he'd do much more, for Sam.  
  
The blonde working the register doesn't say anything about it, though, only smiles, and Dean fishes his wallet out of the pocket, flips through his credit cards. He wants this to be real, not government-sponsored, even though Sam's not going to find out either way.  
  
The girl puts his purchase in a bag before he can tell her not to bother, he's only going a few yards with it, and that's probably just as well. He thanks her, pockets his wallet, grabs the bag, and tries not to notice that his heart is now pounding a new and semi-alarming rhythm. Like he's nervous. Like this is something to be worried about, to be scared of.  
  
It's just -- a gift, is all. Sam doesn't even have to accept it, though Dean's pretty sure he will, even if only to be polite. Worst case scenario, Sam will thank him politely, take it back to the apartment, and stuff it in the back of a closet somewhere, where it will never be seen again. That -- wouldn't be too bad.  
  
Really, Dean tells himself. It wouldn't be, and he should stop being such a fucking  _girl_ , Jesus Christ, it was twenty bucks plus sales tax, it's not his goddamn soul on a chain for Sam to wear around his neck or something.  
  
Sam's exactly where Dean left him, face still turned to watch the flamingos, and Dean kind of wants to stop and marvel at that, at how Sam's got his back turned to everything, to  _anything_ , and his shoulders aren't even hunched, drawn in tight like he's expecting to be hit, or worse.  
  
Dean's never been very good at patience, though, so he crosses the pavement, makes sure his footfalls ring loudly as he approaches, giving Sam plenty of warning. "Hey," he says, and Sam turns towards him. "I, uh. I got you this, I don't know if you'll even want it, it's kinda stupid, I get it, you can toss it if you want, or, like, give it to some kid on the way out or whatever," and he shoves the bag at Sam, paper crinkling, and  _fuck_ , he probably should have planned that out a little better. Instead of rambling and how he's trying with all his fucking might not to bounce with anticipation, not to put any more pressure on Sam just because Dean had this stupid idea and for a second got really excited about what he imagined the look on Sam's face would be, when he saw it, and --  
  
The paper bag drifts to the pavement, which might say everything, because Sam does not drop things like that. Not on good days, not casually, not carelessly, and Dean's first thought is  _oh God I didn't know, fuck, I'm sorry_ , and then,  _then_ , he looks up and actually sees the look on Sam's face, and it's worlds better than even he could have imagined.  
  
He'd thought Sam might be happy; he hadn't thought that Sam would be  _reverent_ , that it would mean just as much to him, almost, as when that goat came over to be petted or whatever. Sam's holding the stuffed giraffe like it's made of spun glass as opposed to being manufactured  _en masse_  in China or wherever, and that alone makes Dean want to take it from him, find him a better one,  _certain_ that there has to be a better one, he just must have missed it on the first try.  
  
"It's not gonna break," Dean says at last, because he has to say something, because otherwise, if he waits too long,  _he's_ going to break and accidentally say something he'll live to regret. "You can, like. I mean, I'm not a big stuffed animal guy, obviously, it's been like sixteen years, you know? But I'm pretty sure they're meant to be durable. If you want to, uh."  
  
Dean had only meant that Sam could hold the giraffe with a little less care, if he wanted; Dean thinks it's probably designed for, like, five-year-olds, which he thinks might still be in the drooling-and-biting stage, and so being held by somebody who quite possibly, on his best days, has more grace and dexterity than Dean, shouldn't be a problem. He hadn't meant that the stuffed animal would be able to withstand being crushed against Dean's chest, when Sam hugged him, tightly and suddenly, one arm around Dean's waist and the other slung awkwardly between them as though he were reluctant to let go of the giraffe for even a moment--  
  
But as it turns out, that's true, too.


	23. Dean Winchester vs. Sarah McLachlan: by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's always been committed to defending anything that makes his kid smile, but he wasn't ready for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone! Sorry we couldn't deliver on the next chapter this month, but we hope this third timestamp will alleviate the pain (though it's not Christmas-themed). Enjoy! It's just one of a hundred pop culture confrontations I have in my head for this 'verse.

Less than a month to go before Sam’s birthday—which was, in case Dean had any chance of forgetting, his first outside that government-sponsored hellhole—and Dean needed to make sure that Sam’s gifts were as awesome as possible.  
  
Books he had covered, since it hadn’t been hard to notice the ones Sam had borrowed again and again from the library, the ones he pored over each night, only reluctantly setting them aside to get into bed with Dean. And he definitely loved the CD player Dean had given him at Christmas, since he’d been using it to listen to CDs also borrowed from the library, but it was harder to spot which ones he’d listened to most often.  
  
So Dean asked, casually, like he was just curious.  
  
Sam looked thoughtfully over to his CD player. “I’ve been playing lots of things, trying to learn about different music genres. There’s one band I like called The Smiths. And Simon and Garfunkel. But there’s a new CD I just got that’s better than anything I’ve heard outside the Impala.” Sam’s voice took on a low tone of excitement, the way it did when he’d discovered something special he didn’t want to share with anyone but Dean.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“She’s a singer,” Sam began, “named Sarah McLachlan —”  
  
Dean snorted a laugh, and immediately he knew that was a mistake. Too late. When he looked up at Sam, Sam’s posture hadn’t changed, but all the excitement had vanished from his face like it had never been.  
  
Fuck. Dean called himself half-a-dozen of the more colorful phrases he knew, and that was just getting started. He tried for a dismissive gesture. “That was, uh, nothing, Sam, just something on TV I remembered—”  
  
“You laughed,” Sam said, and it was worse than Dean had imagined. There was no betrayal in his voice, no hurt accusation. Just a small, blank tone that Dean hadn’t heard in months. “W-why?”  
  
Dean dropped his head into his hands, pushing his hair roughly through his fingers and launching a dozen more profanities at himself. Then he made himself meet Sam’s eyes, because he  _deserved_ this, dammit. “Because I’m an asshole, Sam. I’m sorry, I’m gonna work on it. It’s not got anything to do with you, okay?”  
  
“No,” Sam said. He had lost some of his color in the last half-minute (because Dean was one of the  _worst_ bastards on earth), but in the midst of the blankness, Sam’s eyes were intense, driven by panicked fear. Dean recognized it too well from the early days, when Sam had focused everything he had on trying to learn about the “real world” Dean attempted to explain, because to Sam, the only alternative was drowning.  
  
He leaned in. “Dean, I n-need to know—if you l-laughed, you won’t. Be the o-only one. I need to kn-know—is it wrong? Am I not, not s-s-supposed to—”  
  
“Fuck, no, Sam, there’s nothing fucking wrong with it,” Dean said, with more fervor than he ever thought he’d use to defend Sarah McLachlan. “Other people are assholes, okay? Including me, I lead the pack.”  
  
“ _Dean_ ,” Sam said, and his face hadn’t changed at all, only intensified. That panicked, pleading desperation twisted Dean’s stomach hard, because it said that Sam could feel himself floating out to sea and Dean was the only one to pull him in. He swallowed, wet his lips, and spoke slowly. “I just—I need to know what’s n-normal. I need to know what’s—going to get—a-attention.”  
  
Dean was silent for a minute, fiddling with a strip of wood peeling off the side of the cheap table. He knew what Sam was asking, and he couldn’t do anything but give him an honest answer, even though he hated feeding Sam’s complex about how he had to be  _normal_. Hated Sam’s idea that he wasn’t normal already.  
  
And he hated that he knew exactly what so many assholes would say—including himself, what  _he_ would have said if it were anyone else across from him.  _You wanna keep one of her CDs with your pads and tampons?_  
  
What the hell was wrong with liking a chick singer who crooned sappy love songs, anyway? Why was there such a goddamn problem?  
  
Dean looked at Sam again. When he spoke, it was nearly as slow and halting as Sam, as he tried to articulate something that he was only beginning to glimpse. “Look, Sam—people, they’ve got these dumbass ideas about what guys are supposed to be into and what girls are supposed to be into, like if there’s ever any confusion we’d all start speaking chicken and laying eggs or something. That’s why, I mean—why I say stuff like ‘this ain’t a chickflick.’” Sam nodded, short and stiff. “And kids in school are worst about it, I guess, and some people just never grow up. So let me tell you the truth—there is nothing fucking  _wrong_ with liking Sarah McLachlan or any other chick singer. You can listen to Cher, Madonna, Celine Dion, Britney Spears all day and night if you want to, it won’t make you any less cool to me.  
  
“Because that’s  _your_ thing, and you like what you like, and I respect that, even if I have—brain farts sometimes, and I say dumb shit just out of habit, ‘cause that’s what I learned in school, that you’ve got to say the same dumb shit as anyone else, just say it better, or they’ll give you hell. I don’t mean it, okay? I want you to like what you like. _That’s_ what’s cool, not what some high school jackass trying to prove the size of his dick thinks.  
  
“But if you don’t want to draw attention, then don’t sing them in the diner or at a high school football game, not that going to one of those is high on my to-do list.” Dean sat back. “But if you do wanna belt out some Cowboy Junkie lyrics, and insecure assholes give you shit, just remember that their problem, not yours. You’re better off than all of them.”  
  
Sam smiled a little at that last line, and he nodded. He didn’t say anything more about Sarah McLachlan or what he liked in music, but he didn’t have to. Dean knew he was finding a record store, first chance he got, and getting anything he could find with “McLachlan” on the cover.  
  
It was the least he could do for being one of those insecure assholes that he never wanted anywhere around Sam.


	24. Swimming Lessons: by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's second time stepping into water was far different from the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally figured out a way to build a story around the one line that's been in my head for ages. Enjoy.
> 
> Thank you to onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, firesign10, and brosedshield for excellent feedback.

One of the things Sam hated most was how he didn’t know all he didn’t know. Gaps in his knowledge lurked under the surface of their daily routine, with no warning of how deadly they might be. Such gaps didn’t occur to Dean, either—not until the moment that they presented the most danger.  
  
It had happened on their first hunt near a body of water: the chase of an unidentified gremlin-creature that had led onto a rickety pier. Sam’s foot had gone through a rotted plank, and he’d pitched toward the lake—until Dean seized him by the back of his shirt, hauling him back, and they’d both crashed onto the boards.  
  
The gremlin had disappeared, and they’d been left panting on the pier, until Dean had said, “Fuck, Sam. You can’t swim.”  
  
So here they were a week later, at the shore of a reservoir Dean had checked out for privacy and safety.  
  
Sam stepped slowly into the water, mesmerized by how each movement sent ripples across the surface of the reservoir, on and on. Dean was beside him, sending out larger waves as he moved confidently into the depths, but not as far as he could have gone—he stayed by Sam’s side, moving at his pace.  
  
It wasn’t like the ocean, with the constant advance and retreat of the tide, and Sam couldn’t find the elation he’d felt racing across the beach’s waves while the ocean took no notice of him. The mostly still water of the reservoir contained by a small dam would not rush and roar enough to cover his own noise. He would have to deliberately enter that cool, quiet surface. Even with the ripples of their entrance disrupting the surface, the water was dark and opaque, smooth as glass, waiting to swallow him. Sam could understand why monsters would hide in those depths, waiting for prey.  
  
They’d staked the place out (no unusual activity in the twenty years since the dam had created the small man-made lake), and Dean was beside him, a knife at his waist against any threats, but Sam still had to brace himself before advancing.  
  
He deliberately took longer steps forward, pushing through the water, which was cool but not chilly. It sloshed around his calves, then wet the bottom of his shorts. The lake floor was slippery but solid under his feet.  
  
He had to stop when he was waist-deep, because the water had become a different, heavier presence around him, gripping him around the middle. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he slipped and went under here, if he could push his way back up and find his feet again. Or if the water would close around his chest and squeeze. Without meaning to, he’d taken hold of Dean’s arm.  
  
“Hey.” Dean circled in front of him, taking both Sam’s hands and bouncing a little so the water rose high on his chest. Showing Sam there was nothing to be afraid of. “You got this.”  
  
Sam nodded, more bravado than conviction. He took a step further, then another, and had to stop again. He knew his grip on Dean’s hands was hard, but he couldn’t loosen it.  
  
He had never been submerged in a body of water this way, but he had memories of a different sort of immersion: hands tight on his hair, pushing his head under. He sucked in air.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
“I’m okay.” He was not, but he had to say it. That was the first step to being okay.  _Fake it ‘til you make it._  
  
“I got you,” Dean said, calm and certain. It helped, a little. Sam tried to focus on him, on the strength in his arms holding Sam’s, and not the way the water clung to him, weighing down his legs like a wet sheet tying him to a table.  
  
Dean drew them both out a little farther, and the water lapped against Sam’s chest. Sam made a noise, something he couldn’t contain in his throat, and Dean paused.  
  
“You’re okay, see? You can float on your back here, if you wanna try.”  
  
Sam shuddered and said in a rush, “Please don’t push me under.” The words came without permission, and a distant part of him registered them in horror: they were wrong, insulting to Dean, demonstrating a lack of faith, a betrayal of everything they’d overcome in the last year. But he couldn’t focus with the heavy, cold weight of water consuming three-quarters of him, ready to drag him down and suffocate—  
  
Dean stopped completely. “Whoa, whoa. Okay, time out.” He walked Sam backward to the shore, until Sam felt dry grass under his feet and he could sit, shivering, and wrap his arms around his wet legs. His shorts and T-shirt clung to him, a reminder of the water’s heavy grip.  
  
Dean went to the Impala and returned with a towel, draped it around Sam’s shoulders, then sat down next to him. Sam clutched the towel close and tried to stop his teeth from chattering.  
  
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dean said after a moment, and he sounded it. “You’d think I’d know by now not to do that. Not to push you so fast.”  
  
“It’s o-okay. I mean. It sh-should be okay.” It was  _going_ to be okay. Being afraid or not liking something had never been an excuse to fail. And it wasn’t like the water  _hurt_ him, when it hadn’t even reached his mouth. Swimming was an important skill, especially for hunting. He couldn’t leave Dean vulnerable. Sam clenched his teeth and crossed his legs, sitting up straighter. “I want to try again.”  
  
“There’s no rush. We can come back tomorrow.”  
  
“I want to try  _again_ ,” Sam repeated, and stood up, letting the towel fall. “It’s like riding a bike, right? Or a horse. When you have to get back on.”  
  
Dean looked at him, sighed, and got to his feet. “Okay, Sammy. But we don’t gotta stay in long.”  
  
“I just wasn’t prepared,” Sam told him, as they neared the edge again. “It feels...It shouldn’t be so bad now.” That was a familiar refrain for himself:  _You survived it before, so it won’t be so bad this time, now you know what to expect._  
  
He didn’t try to float on his back that day, but he did try treading water. That was good, Dean told him, half of all swimming was the dog paddle, anyway.  
  
The next day, Sam tried dunking his head under the water, just for a second. He coughed and gasped for breath for a long time after, wiping his eyes frantically while Dean moved him into shallower waters, arm around his back, murmuring reassurance and encouragement. Then Sam did it again, half a dozen times, until Dean said it was time to get back out of the water.  
  
He had bad dreams that night—cold, unseen arms dragging him down to where he couldn’t breathe, while he could only move sluggishly, his limbs leaden. It was hard to wake from them.  
  
But he doggedly went back. Dean rustled up a couple flotation devices—one called a kickboard, another a noodle—that helped Sam get used to the water, helped ease the fear that he was a moment away from slipping beneath the surface forever. He practiced kicking and freestyle, back and forth between the narrowest points of the reservoir, and Dean swam alongside him. The first time Sam tried it unassisted, Dean brought the foam noodle just in case Sam needed to stop. But Sam put his head down, breathing to the side like Dean had taught him, and focused on moving his arms and legs. He didn’t stop until his fingers hit the rocky soil, and he pulled himself up on the far bank.  
  
He didn’t like swimming, didn’t think he ever would. But when he pulled himself from the slick depths that last day before they headed out again, Sam knew that he could defeat the water. He could keep himself afloat and make it as far as he needed to without that old panic setting in. It was just a matter of pushing his limbs to obey, to continue as long as necessary, and he could rely on himself for that. On himself, and on Dean’s confidence in him, that patient certainty that Sam could master anything reals could do.


	25. In Sickness and in Health: by Lavinia Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Deleted scene) Dean is a difficult patient. Sam learns how to play board games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a deleted scene to share with you! Though only “deleted” in the sense of “didn’t exist until now, but it’s what I had planned to write for ages before we had to chuck it.” It has to do with the first time Sam says, “I love you.”
> 
> As we ended up writing and posting the scene, Sam says this for the first time on his seventeenth birthday, in a botanical garden (Ch. 29). But that was only Plan B.
> 
> Plan A was something quite different, which I am happy to share with you now. Here’s the set-up, which is what we originally had planned for the winter/spring of 2000 (i.e., Sam’s first winter/spring outside Freak Camp):
> 
> Dean was going to end up with a hospital-worthy injury first, before Sam’s first hospital-worthy injury (which happened in Ch. 27). Some type of leg injury Dean couldn’t limp off, one that actually requires some rehab and real rest before they could resume hunting. Sam’s nervous to be in such an official environment as a hospital, but at least he isn’t under the same scrutiny as patients, and he learns to argue more with Dean when it comes to his health. So he coaxes Dean into sticking around for the rehab plan, though the problem then becomes keeping Dean entertained and off his feet.
> 
> And that brings us to my deleted scene.

The extended stay motel was frequently used by hospital out-patients, judging by the resources in the lobby. One corner was set aside for a jumble of toys and coloring books for small children; health and medical magazines covered the coffee tables; and wall posters encouraged good nutrition and exercise for the best recovery.  
  
Inside the cupboards along one wall, Sam found stacks of board games that the receptionist, Linda, had suggested might help them pass the time. He’d asked Dean which ones he should look for, but Dean had been too far gone on pain meds and the strain of relocating from the hospital, not to mention pissed at needing the wheelchair. “Anything, Sammy, it doesn’t fucking matter” had not been particularly helpful selection advice, but Sam was persuaded that Dean really wouldn’t mind whichever he chose.  
  
He examined the boxes carefully from a couple feet away, then slid them out one at a time to read the text printed on the top and bottom. Some rattled as he turned them over, but no one in the lobby (currently two nurses talking to the receptionist, and an older man reading a newspaper in one of the armchairs) so much as glanced over at him.  
  
The descriptions weren’t much help in figuring out which ones Dean would like best, so Sam finally chose three boxes at semi-random: Clue, Battleship, and Checkers. Each seemed different enough that Dean would enjoy at least one. Then he returned to their second-floor room. It was both larger and more comfortable than their usual motels and even had a small kitchen area with a stovetop, microwave, and a mini-fridge with a freezer compartment.  
  
Dean wasn’t awake enough to more than read the titles until the next day, after a late breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon that Sam brought over from the Denny’s next door. Linda had shaken her head in mock disapproval when she’d seen the bag Sam had carried in, and he guessed it probably wasn’t exactly the nutritious breakfast that the lobby posters recommended.  
  
It was definitely the kind Dean loved, though. He cleaned out the styrofoam box and tossed it frisbee-style into the tiny trash can in the corner. “How ‘bout you give me a tour of this place, Sammy? Gotta know our escape routes.”  
  
“There’s not much to see,” Sam said. “The stairway leading outside is just two doors down to the left of our door, and you can see the Impala from the window. Look, I found some of the games Linda mentioned.” He spread the boxes over on the bed. “I read the rules, but I want to know how you play them.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “If you’ve read the instructions, that’s more than I ever did.”  
  
It took five more minutes of coaxing to get Dean to focus on the games, but finally he agreed to start with Checkers. Sam figured neither of them would get confused (even with Dean on the good meds) with only two different colored pieces.  
  
Sam quickly got the hang of moving diagonally and jumping Dean’s pieces. It was strategy, and thinking ahead, and, to a lesser extent, making sure you stayed alive, though with far lower stakes than he’d ever known before. Dean played carelessly, pushing his pieces almost at random, and soon Sam had three kinged pieces while Dean only had one.  
  
An uncomfortable yet familiar knot was forming in Sam’s stomach. He’d felt that same guilt years and years ago, playing card games in the shadow of Freak Camp’s barracks. He knew now, intellectually, that Dean didn’t care if Sam won. Dean was perfectly capable of holding his own (or at least presenting more of a challenge), and Sam could tell that he wasn’t even trying.  
  
Still, it felt like taking advantage of Dean when he wasn’t feeling well.  
  
“We could play cards instead,” Sam suggested, after Dean’s next move put his last few checkers in a perfect configuration for Sam to sweep them up.  
  
Dean looked up at him, an eyebrow quirked. It was not at all fair that even when Dean had been sitting in his pajama shirt and boxers all day, barely moving because of his injured leg, his hair disheveled and a thin layer of stubble over his jaw, his green eyes could still look so captivating. He should not look younger than usual.  
  
“Finish kicking my ass first. I ain’t so hurt that I’m gonna let you quit.” Dean gestured at the board, both the motion and his tone indifferent, and Sam flushed, but relaxed, too. He wrapped up the game quickly, capturing the remaining pieces while Dean put up only a token defense.  
  
“There.” Sam swept the pieces back into the box, folding up the board. “I’ll get the cards.”  
  
They played War, which Sam judged the best choice for Dean’s current attention span. The flick and slap of cards became rhythmic, soothing, until neither of them could hold back their yawns. Then Dean pushed aside the Checkers box they were using as a card table and patted the mattress next to him.  
  
“Wanna check out the channel selection in this joint?”  
  
Sam scooted closer, careful not to bounce the bed or bump against Dean’s injured leg. As Dean thumbed the remote, Sam’s eyes drifted shut.  
  
Dean settled beside him, the TV showing some kind of soap opera, Sam thought. Dean reached his arm over to tug him closer, and Sam rested his head on Dean’s shoulder, letting himself drowse.  
  
Sam woke up to Dean shifting and muttering under his breath, groping for his meds. Sam got up to refill his water glass, and when he returned, Dean was upright and glaring out from under his rumpled hair. He reminded Sam irresistibly of one of the baby birds they’d seen on the nature channel.  
  
Dean swallowed a gulp of water and fixed his stare on Sam. “You’ve gotta get me out of this room at least once today, Sam, or I’m gonna lose it.”  
  
Sam didn’t argue. Instead he pushed the wheelchair over to Dean’s side of the bed and offered his arm for balance. Dean ignored it, reaching awkwardly across to grab the arm bar on the wheelchair before swinging himself down. He didn’t make a noise, but Sam could read his clenched jaw well enough and waited to let Dean adjust.  
  
“Ready?” Sam said at last.  
  
“Yeah. Dunno what you’re waiting for.” Dean’s voice was gruff.  
  
Sam pushed him once around the floor, past the other silent, closed doors, then they took the elevator down to the ground floor. Dean wanted to see where Sam had parked the Impala, so Sam wheeled him out to the parking lot.  
  
Dean said nothing when they reached his car, parked half under the shade of a large oak.  
  
“It could use a wash,” Sam said, a little uneasy. “I could do it tomorrow, or later today.”  
  
“Nah.” Dean shifted in his chair. “We’ll do it when I get out of here.” He jerked his head toward the residence behind him, and Sam turned his chair around.  
  
There wasn’t anything else to see. Back upstairs in their room, Dean did not seem eager to get back into bed. Sam brought his wheelchair to the dining room table and took a seat across from him, pushing the stack of board games forward.  
  
“We could try Battleship?”  
  
Dean agreed, though without much enthusiasm, and the game provided a distraction for half an hour. Sam learned and Dean relearned the game. It was just a guessing game, hardly requiring more thought than War did. Numerous ships were sunk on both sides, but eventually Dean’s attention began to slide. He shifted restlessly, drumming his fingers on the table, glancing toward the window and door.  
  
“We could play something else?” Sam offered.  
  
Dean looked back at him, a gleam in his eye that meant he had something else in mind. “What do you say we blow this joint?”  
  
Sam blinked at him, unsure if he were serious.  
  
“I mean it. Let’s pack up and hit the road, tonight. You can get us a few towns over at least, couple hundred miles.”  
  
“But,” Sam said, and looked at the wheelchair in spite of himself. Dean scowled. “How are you—can we take that with us? And what about your follow-up appointments, the physical therapy?”  
  
“Fuck ‘em.” Dean flicked out his hand impatiently. “I bounce back, you know I do. That shit’s optional.”  
  
Sam didn’t know what to say. It was hard to argue with Dean when he was like this—not quite making sense, but Sam was left without the vocabulary, the  _understanding_ to argue.  
  
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said at last. Despite everything Dean had told him, it was still difficult to say those words, like they mattered, like they ought to make a difference.  
  
Dean let out a loud, exasperated sigh, slumping back theatrically. “C’mon, Sam, we’re going stir-crazy here. I mean, it’s cool of you to try to keep me going, but there’s no beating the fact that they got us locked up here.”  
  
The words hung in the air, as Sam tried and failed to make sense of them. They’d gone to the Impala that day. They could have just gotten in and driven away, and no one was standing guard with guns or prods to stop them. Did Dean think that Linda at the front desk would call for a sniper and a black van to bring them back if they left?  
  
Then Dean grimaced and made an angry dismissive gesture. ”Jesus. I can’t believe I’m bitching to you, of all people.”  
  
This confused Sam further. “Why not me?”  
  
“Nothing.” Dean shook his head, quick and dismissive. “Look, you don’t have to stick around and watch this boring-ass show.” His voice had gone hard and businesslike, the push for a premature departure dropped. “There’s gotta be a library in walking distance. Get a change of scenery. Stretch your legs for me.”  
  
Sam did not want to leave Dean alone now, not unless Dean truly wanted him to go. “Maybe later.”  
  
Dean huffed. “Suit yourself. But I’m warning you, this week ain’t gonna be a barrel of laughs with me.”  
  
“Next two weeks,” Sam corrected. He’d thought of a good argument. “You didn’t let me take any shortcuts when I got hurt. Even though I really didn’t want to see the doctor.”  
  
“But I didn’t make you stay in one place,” Dean countered. “Why you gotta be such a hardass?”  
  
“Because I love you,” Sam said.  
  
He hadn’t meant it to be an extraordinary statement. He certainly hadn’t meant to freeze Dean completely, his eyes wide and fixed on Sam.  
  
Shit, maybe Sam had done it wrong. People said those words frequently on TV and books, but there was always something about the scene that made it the perfect time. Maybe this hadn’t been.  
  
Sam cast around for a subject change, hoping they could pretend he hadn’t said anything. His eyes landed on the stack of game boards. “Do you want to try Clue? It’s like detective practice, right, so it could help keep us sharp.”  
  
“Hey. Sam.” Dean’s voice was different now: quieter, softer.  
  
Still apprehensive, Sam looked back at him.  
  
Dean beckoned him with a crooked finger. “You know I can’t get up, so get your ass over here.”  
  
Now Sam smiled, getting up to move around the table. Dean caught his hand, then his waist, tugging him down to catch his mouth. The angle should have been awkward, but nothing could be just then. This, Sam thought, was a perfect moment after all.  
  
When they were done, Dean’s eyes had gone brighter and more focused. Sam was certain that if he hadn’t been in a wheelchair, they wouldn’t have stopped at a few deep kisses.  
  
But Dean glanced back at the last unopened board game.. “All right, let’s see which of these fancy assholes ganked the vic.” He gestured for the last board game, and Sam unpacked Clue over the table.


	26. Knock the Breath out of You, the Breath out of Me: by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sooner or later, someone would say exactly the wrong thing. You could count on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone! Have a DARK FICLET as a present. The first timestamp from...THE FUTURE of the story.
> 
> It's set about five to ten years in the future for no particular reason — I don’t think there’s anything here out of place for the current timeline of Part Two. Certainly no spoilers.
> 
> It’s simply that when this scene came to me, I was thinking about the later years, I was thinking about how Sam deals with trigger episodes then. There are fewer panic attacks, but there’s still...this. Which I think will happen to one degree or another for the rest of their lives.
> 
> Thank you to brosedshield for the excellent feedback.

Sometimes people say shit that shut Sam up, shut him down. It may be a cutting comment about kids who weren't that innocent after all. More often it is a joke about what happens to guys in prison who bend over to pick up the soap, or who learn to like it, or who take it like a natural. Sometimes it is just the wrong kind of dirty remark, one Dean wouldn't've thought to blink at, before, but now makes all life and light flicker out of Sam's eyes.  
  
He never looks surprised or shocked by anything anyone says. The empty resignation that takes its place, the flat acceptance of hurt, is far, far worse.  
  
So he shuts up, wherever they are and whoever they're talking to (if it's a case interview, sometimes he strives to go on, but it's godawful to watch, the way he starts stuttering, unable to meet anyone's eyes, his struggle to focus). There may be no perceptible change in body language, but Sam has no more to say, period. No one else might notice the change, but Dean does, because he's got the world's finest tuned sensor to that shit by now. And to Sam.  
  
Dean gets them out of there, as soon as he can, because he no longer wants to be there either, talking to whoever the asswipe is, after he sees Sam's eyes go blank and empty, waiting for something worse to happen. But there's nothing he can say, once it's just them in the car. No point addressing it, unless he just wants to swear it out until he feels marginally better, but that doesn't do shit for Sam, as far as he can tell. Sam might smile and shrug, hunched in the shotgun seat, but he's still got nothing to say.  
  
And that will go on for hours. Dean used to panic a little, grow desperate to coax Sam to say something, afraid he'll never hear Sam's voice again or that Sam will keep withdrawing into total catatonia. Now he just orders takeout, tries to find a documentary or a Sam-approved movie, something where they can just kick back and relax, where neither of them has to talk, until they fall asleep.  
  
And maybe in the morning, if he's lucky, he'll hear a quiet "hey" when he wakes up. Or maybe it will take longer, and each hour will become a dull aching wound, one he tries to fill with his own voice or with tapes so he doesn't have to hear the echoes of what that fucker said the other day, the words that stole Sammy's voice, and he tries to figure out how he can see it coming next time and be fast enough to deck the motherfucker before the words are said.


	27. Starman: by LaviniaLavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His voice was Sam's second favorite in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a timestamp that started as a fragmentary scene before this January, but since then I was motivated to pull it into a cohesive series of vignettes set over seventeen years: 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2016. Yes, enjoy the peek into the future of this 'verse, but don't expect spoilers.
> 
> Thank you to givemethechild, brosedshield, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for the excellent feedback. For real, you all elevated this story to top-notch quality. Thank you especially to givemethechild for the firsthand account of the Reality Tour.

**2000**  
  
_No one understands, but Major Tom sees  
Now the light commands, this is my home  
I'm coming home_  
  
Sam lay on his back across the motel bed, listening to his _Best of Bowie_ CD on the laptop. They'd picked up the album at a record store, after Sam had been riveted by the half-melancholy, half-triumphant ballad "Space Oddity" when they’d stopped in a coffee shop.  
  
In his two decades of devotion to classic rock, Dean hadn’t paid much attention to Bowie. He'd never thought of the music-and-glamour icon as part of that same genre, really, or at least not what Dean associated with long nights roaring down the highway or the jukebox choice to seduce a pretty blonde back to his room. Bowie had his own weird groove going, something entirely on his own wavelength, and it wasn’t one Dean had ever shared. Apart from how he had no intention of trampling on Sam's music explorations again, Dean was surprised to find this wasn't that bad a listen. Miles ahead of Sarah McLachlan, for sure.  
  
As “Changes” started for the second time, Sam observed, "He has my second-favorite voice."  
  
Dean glanced over, curious. "Who's your first?"  
  
He expected to hear _Robert Plant_ or something similar, but Sam matter-of-factly said, "Yours," while still gazing up at the ceiling, lost in the music.  
  
*  
  
**2001**  
  
_I'm afraid of Americans  
I'm afraid of the world_  
  
When Sam unfolded the Bowie T-shirt that Dean had fished out of the back rack of Vintage-Go-Round for his birthday, his expression was as priceless as Dean had hoped for: jaw dropped, eyes widening, as though Dean had given him the Holy Grail itself.  
  
Luckily for Dean, he had no plans to make Sam let go of it the rest of that day, as Sam seemed unwilling to stop rolling the soft cotton between his fingers or running his hand over the graphic of Bowie’s face, name, and the legend _Live Santa Monica '72_.  
  
He put it on the very next day, as Dean had hoped he would. But in the time between leaving the motel room and arriving at the diner for breakfast, Sam zipped his hoodie up to his neck. It was chilly in Nebraska for May, so Dean didn't think much of it.  
  
He noticed a pattern, though, as the weather warmed. Sam wore the Bowie concert tee often, but always under his hoodie.  
  
Finally, Dean couldn’t bite his tongue any longer. “You think someone’s going to give you a hard time for being a Bowie fan?”  
  
Sam’s cheeks reddened as he looked away. Dean felt a twinge of guilt, but he wouldn’t brush his words aside. He wanted to know what Sam was afraid of, to fix it if he could.  
  
He could tell that Sam was thinking hard about what to say, so he waited. At last Sam turned back, speaking slowly. “One thing I’ve learned out here… Clothes tell you things, right? That’s why we wear different clothes to interviews, and why you talk about suits and jocks and preps, because of what they wear. And when people wear shirts with words or logos or someone's face, they're saying something about themselves, too. They're telling everyone what they like, what they're into. And I—I don't want to tell everyone something about myself. About w-what I like."  
  
Dean mulled that over while chewing a mouthful of waffles with syrup, thinking about how insightful his kid was, the way he saw things Dean had never given two shits for. Finally, Dean said, "All you're saying is you have fucking fantastic taste in sparkly rock and a hot blond British weirdo. No one can give you a hard time for that. And if they do, you know I’ll tell ‘em to fuck off."  
  
Sam smiled, his cheeks coloring again. He sounded less earnest, more slyly amused, when he said, "That blond British weirdo is as cool as you."  
  
"Yeah? You think I can pull off glitter eyeshadow?"  
  
Sam snorted in laughter. The next day, he wore his Bowie shirt over a long-sleeved shirt, and no hoodie.  
  
*  
  
**2004**  
  
_The sun machine is coming down, and we’re gonna have a party_  
  
“I can’t believe you got the tickets,” Sam said for the twelfth time, and Dean pulled him in close by his waist, nuzzling his neck as they stood in the massive snaking line that doubled back and forth before the amphitheatre entrance. Sam and Dean usually dressed to blend in, but now the effort had backfired, so that they stuck out in their drabness. This crowd was dressed more flamboyantly than a flock of tropical birds; men and women of all ages wore neon feather boas, platform heels, body glitter, jumpsuits and wigs. An atmosphere of giddy excitement ran through the line, as concert-goers laughed and exchanged compliments, leaning together for pictures.  
  
“Yeah, well, you only turn twenty-one once,” Dean said into Sam’s ear.  
  
Sam turned his head to grin down at him, his cheeks ruddy in the glow of the May sunset. Every inch of him tanned and healthy, and Dean didn’t need beer to feel intoxicated with how goddamn lucky they both were. “That was last week,” Sam reminded him.  
  
“So? You think Bowie is gonna come on over some other time for your twenty-first?”  
  
Sam caught his mouth in a kiss, brief but sweet, before they took another step forward in the slow crawl of the line.  
  
The amphitheatre for the Reality Tour was huge and humid, the wait interminable even with a few cold beers. Their seats in the middle-rear seemed a good compromise between seeing the stage and keeping the exit handy. Sam looked relaxed enough, one arm stretched behind Dean’s seat with his foot propped on his knee. The sun dipped lower in the sky as the crowd ignored the warm-up bands, waiting for David Bowie to appear.  
  
“So what getup do you think he’s gonna wear?” Dean asked Sam. “That carrot top wig with the big-ass lightning bolt across his face, or is he gonna do that tribute to his coke years?”  
  
Sam cast him an amused, tolerant look, like he knew Dean was deliberately messing with him. “He hasn’t done those personas since the seventies, you know.”  
  
“He’s not still stuck in the eighties, is he? No one looked good in blown-up hair and power suits.”  
  
“He’s not dressing like the eighties,” Sam said firmly. “Whatever it is, it’s right for him now. It always is.” He hesitated, then went on quieter, for Dean’s ears only. “That’s what always got me, apart from his songs. When I first saw pictures of him from over the years, but especially the seventies. He didn’t care at all about how he was supposed to look. He just did what he wanted, and no one messed with him for it.”  
  
The stage was empty now, as the opening band had cleared off and the roadies had rearranged the stage equipment. It was completely dark now, the black of the amphitheatre’s edges merging with the night. Across the crowd, people had started to chant, “Bowie! Bowie! Bowie!”  
  
Then the massive video screen behind the stage lit up. The crowd whooped and whistled, surging up. Sam was on his feet in an instant, Dean a moment behind him.  
  
The screen flashed images of cities, expanding to the planet, the universe, galaxies and constellations spinning past. Before the interstellar canvas, each band member strode across the stage. Then the video dimmed, and a spotlight lit up the center stage, illuminating David Bowie.  
  
In the roar of the crowd, Sam caught Dean’s hand and squeezed.  
  
For an old-time rocker pushing sixty, Bowie put on a hell of a show, his hips gently swaying in his wide-legged stance, loose blond hair catching the light whenever he tossed it back. He played a white Supro Dual Tone guitar slung across his chest, and even his tailcoat didn’t seem too pretentious. Bowie owned it. Dean kinda got what Sam had been saying.  
  
Sam’s face glowed in the reflected light of the stage, transfixed by the performance. Dean had never been to a better concert in his life.  
  
*  
  
**2016**  
  
"I had a dream that I got to meet Bowie."  
  
It was mid-morning on a Tuesday, and after checking in late the night before, Sam and Dean had no particular place to be. They hadn’t yet gotten out of bed.  
  
Dean turned toward him. "Yeah? What'd you guys get up to?"  
  
Sam’s gaze was on the ceiling, his voice distant and thoughtful. "We were just sitting in a diner. Waiting for you, I think. We weren't really talking, just hanging out, and I knew you'd be there soon. I wanted you two to meet. That's all I remember."  
  
David Bowie had died two days before. Seeing the headline flash across the TV Monday morning while Sam was in the shower, Dean had had a moment of disbelief, unwilling to accept it as truth, even though Bowie had never been _his_ celebrity. He hadn’t wanted to break the news to Sam, but there’d been no alternative. He’d kept the volume low until he heard the water shut off, and then he’d turned the TV off and waited for Sam to appear.  
  
He had forgotten Sam’s equanimity towards death, however. Sam had hardly looked surprised; his forehead knit, he asked the cause of death, and then he nodded. He stayed quiet the rest of the day. Dean played their Bowie cassettes all day without needing to be asked. Then late that night, Sam had found the Blackstar album streaming online. “Lazarus” sent chills down the back of Dean’s neck ( _I’ve got scars that can’t be seen_ ), but he didn’t say a word when Sam put it on repeat until they went to bed.  
  
They hadn’t talked about it, until now.  
  
“You gotta remember what he was wearing,” Dean said.  
  
A smile turned up the corner of Sam’s mouth. “It was black. But it had silver embroidery.”  
  
“‘Course it did. Bet it was some kinda galaxy.”  
  
“I think it was a guitar,” Sam said seriously.  
  
“There was stars and stuff on the back, you just couldn’t see.”  
  
Sam turned to him, smiling for real now. “You say that like you saw him, too.”  
  
“We both saw him. On that stage in Atlanta. Ain’t never gonna forget that night.” Over a decade ago now, and it seemed a lifetime—they’d traveled thousands of miles, gotten plenty of hard knocks, and learned a thing or two despite them. Dean wasn’t ready to admit he was closer to forty than thirty, but his body didn’t bounce back from the injuries he used to just shake off, and he’d finally learned to appreciate what Sam meant by caution. But he still remembered Sam at twenty-one, ducking his head to hide a smile, then raising his arms up high in answer to Bowie’s farewell salute.  
  
Sam was quiet, his eyes looking somewhere distant, far beyond Dean. “He was,” he said at last, slowly, “one of the beautiful things I never dreamed could exist, before. Not just his music, but—everything he did over the decades, the way he dressed without caring what anyone thought. He was so free.”  
  
Dean found Sam’s hand, matching the calluses on Sam’s fingers to the ones on his own palm. “You still got him, in everything he left behind. That’s not going away. Like that last album he gave everyone, ‘cause he knew his time was up.”  
  
Sam’s eyes returned to Dean’s face, and he gave a slight nod against the pillow.  
  
_You know, I'll be free_  
_Just like that bluebird_  
 _Now ain't that just like me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Sam's 18th birthday shirt: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71Pwnn-p0SL._UX385_.jpg
> 
> Research for this was pretty fun. You can watch many of his Reality Tour shows in full on YouTube. My favorites were the Philadelphia and Toronto shows. 
> 
> I discovered Bowie pretty late in my own music journey (Houston radio stations never ever played his songs, as I suspect is common across much of the South), as givemethechild introduced me to his albums when I was 18. I was never among his most devoted fans, but I'll always remember one summer I worked as a waitress, I made a habit of listening to Bowie on my iPod each morning as I did my chores before the restaurant opened. I understand at least a little of his musical and visual mystique, and how he both captivated and freed so many people. 
> 
> You should all see this photoset tribute, if you haven't already: http://tomandlorenzo.com/2016/01/david-bowie-1947-2016/
> 
> And, of course, quickreaver's tribute: http://mysweetetc.tumblr.com/post/137099412837


End file.
